


Forget All The Shooting Stars

by spaceface (rowena24)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: A Love Vaguely Triangular Clusterfuck, Angst, Dissociation, Jealousy, Keith is a Mess, M/M, Miscommunication, Near Death Experiences, Non-Compliant with the Season 1 Ending, Pining, Tags will be added as we go, also i feel like i need to clarify, buckle up kids you're in for a ride, death of a non-character, emotional breakdown, keith is not gonna "settle" for lance or treat him like a rebound, minor depictions of violence, nonbinary pidge, that's such a shitty trope, the klance is also onesided for most of the fic that's just the way it goes, ya he's a jealous dick in the beginning but there will be Character Development. i promise.
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-18
Updated: 2016-11-19
Packaged: 2018-08-09 14:06:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 31,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7804717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rowena24/pseuds/spaceface
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Shiro didn’t know what he did to deserve this.</p><p> Okay, well, he could think of a few things, but that didn’t mean he was any more prepared to deal with a full-blown love triangle on his team. Especially not one that he was somehow caught in the middle of. He never had this kind of drama back in high school."</p><p>AKA Lance likes Keith, Keith likes Shiro, and Shiro agrees to help Lance win Keith over against his better judgement.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> First things first: an enormous thank you to my wonderful friend and beta [Diane](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Total_Fangirl/pseuds/Total_Fangirl), who came up with the plot for this with me in the middle of the night and then was a consistent motivator to actually write and post this thing. I wouldn't be here without you.
> 
> Secondly, as a disclaimer: this is written according to my own age headcanons. We actually started coming up with the plot for this before the Age DiscourseTM blew up, so, there you go. All of the paladins are 18-19 except for Shiro, who is 26. (Shiro is also Not Interested in Keith or Lance, just to be abundantly clear.)
> 
> Title is from for him. by Troye Sivan. Please enjoy!

Shiro didn’t know what he did to deserve this.

Okay, well, he could think of a few things, but that didn’t mean he was any more prepared to deal with a full-blown love triangle on his team. Especially not one that he was somehow caught in the middle of. _He_ never had this kind of drama back in high school.

“Shiroooo, come on, it’s like you’re not even paying attention to me,” Lance pouted, sprawled out on the couch across from him. “So like, I need to know what products he uses for that mullet. Is it some special Altean stuff? Because there’s no way he can just get it to _stay_ like that, it’s always this perfectly--”

“Lance.”

“Because I know it’s super soft too, that one time I had to carry him when he passed out on a mission--”

_“Lance.”_

“What?”

Shiro pinched the bridge of his nose in exasperation. “Have you tried just asking Keith? I’m sure he’s not that secretive about his hair-care routine.”

Lance groaned. “Okay, but that’s not the point. He thinks we’re rivals, I can’t just ask him what shampoo he uses! That’d be weird. And _gay._ ”

Shiro stared at him. “Right. And you don’t want to give the guy you have a crush on that impression because…”

Lance quickly grabbed a cushion off the couch and began smothering himself with it to hide his emerging blush. “You know what I meeeeeean,” was his muffled reply.

“I really don’t, Lance. It’s Keith. You’re going to have to be direct with him eventually, he’ll never pick up on it otherwise.” No response came from underneath the cushion. Shiro crossed his arms and sighed. He wasn’t going to be too hard on the kid; he had to fumble his way through this at his own pace. “If you really need me to, I’ll ask Keith about his hair. And I’ll even try to slip in a good word for you, alright?”

Lance perked up immediately. “Thanks, Shiro! You’re the best. I couldn’t live without ya, man,” he said, with finger guns and a wink.

Shiro waved him off and got up from his seat. He went into the hallway in search of Keith, running his fingers through his hair. Lance was a good kid, but God, was he oblivious. This was the last thing Shiro wanted to get stuck in the middle of, especially since he was pretty sure Keith had a little bit of a crush on him. At the very least, something close to hero worship. Shit, he probably should have thought of that before he agreed to help Lance out. Hey, maybe it would work out in his favor and Keith would listen to him and give Lance a little more credit?

This was going to be a disaster, wasn’t it?

**************

Keith exited the training deck sweaty, sore, and exhausted. That Level 7 bot really did a number on him. At least, that’s what he blamed for having his guard down as he rounded the corner. He was wiping his face dry with a towel, not paying attention, and slammed directly into a wall of solid muscle. He stumbled backward, looked up, and there was Shiro, smiling and warm.

_Oh._

Keith frantically willed his stupid fluttering heart under control. That smile should be illegal, the way it lit up his chest like a fireworks display. And the way it was slightly crooked, and the way his eyes scrunched up a tiny bit at the corners, and... and those lips were moving so he should probably pay attention to the words coming out.

"--looking for you, and I thought I'd find you around here." It took all of Keith's self-control to not let the blood rush to his face. Shiro was looking for him. And it certainly didn't seem to be mission related, judging by that smile and his relaxed body language. Keith's head felt warm and fuzzy. He knew he wasn't... the best with people, and usually avoided social interactions like the plague, just to save everyone the mutual embarrassment. But here was Shiro, kind and seeking him out, and it felt nice. It felt like the way things used to be.

"Whoa there, you alright, Keith?" Shiro moved to grab his elbow as Keith stumbled again, this time towards the older man. Keith paused to ground himself. That training session really took more out of him than he thought. He was feeling a little faint, although this close proximity to Shiro wasn't helping.

"'M fine," Keith mumbled as he shook off Shiro's hand. "Just a bit drained." And he did not feel guilty for the pang of concern that flashed across the other's face, dammit.

"Alright. You want to grab some food? Might help your energy." Shiro took a step back and Keith didn't feel guilty, alright? He mostly just wanted to lock himself in his room and sleep, but... Shiro wanted to spend time alone with him, and he wasn't exactly gonna pass up an opportunity like that.

"Sure. I could eat."

They walked to the dining hall, chatting about nothing in particular. Well, Shiro was chatting, Keith was mumbling two-word responses in the gaps. He didn't mind, though. He liked it, actually. Liked listening to Shiro rambling about inane topics like hair-care. It was unlike him, really. Shiro was always someone who spoke with a purpose, not to fill silence. That was more Lance than anything. He seemed almost... nervous? Keith did his best to kill the fluttering hope that thought stirred in him.

And speaking of the blue motor-mouth, Keith noticed somewhat uncomfortably that a lot of Shiro's chatter seemed to center around... him. Lance said this, Lance did that. Keith scowled as he poked his spoon around his goo, not pouting in the slightest.

"Hey... Keith, you sure you're alright? You've barely eaten." Keith hated the open concern in the black paladin's voice. It made him ache, and it had no right to. Especially when Shiro wanted to spend their time together, even if all he was talking about was Lance. Keith was abruptly hyper-aware of the distance between them, both physically and emotionally. Maybe things weren’t like they used to be.

"Yeah. 'M fine. Just tired. I'm... I think 'm gonna crash for the night." He stood up suddenly, too suddenly. He felt Shiro's eyes widen and lean back in his chair and hated it, hated it. Hated how he couldn't seem to have a conversation about their teammate like a normal person.

"...That's fine, I'll... don't let me keep you. We're going to have group training early in the morning anyway. Go get some rest." Shiro stood up as well and clapped him on the shoulder. It took everything in Keith to not shy away from him. Wordlessly, he slipped out of the dining hall, down the corridors and into his room. In one fluid motion, he locked the door and launched himself onto his bed. Luckily, he fell asleep almost as soon as his head hit the pillow.

**********

Shiro swore as Keith hurried away from him down the halls. He thought it had been going well. Sure, Keith wasn't super responsive, but even in the best of moods the kid was pretty quiet. He'd screwed it up somehow, though. He guessed he'd just have to try again later when Keith had some rest.

At least he could tell Lance the secrets behind Keith's perfect mullet. Gotta take the small victories when you can get them.

**********

Training that morning could’ve gone better. Granted, they’d had worse, but Shiro couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off. There weren’t any major mistakes, but Keith seemed to be a little… distracted. It was weird, since he was usually hyper-focused during training, but Lance had to end up covering for him a few more times than necessary. Still, they managed to pass all of the castle’s training simulators without too much trouble. The rest of the team seemed to be acting normally, so Shiro almost brushed off his observations as paranoia. Lance was once again bragging about his amazing skills to Hunk, and Pidge had already gone off to their computer. He placed a hand on Lance’s shoulder before heading to the showers.

”Nice save back there Lance, keep up the good work.” 

Lance nodded without pausing the story he was regaling Hunk with. Shiro chuckled and moved to leave. But on his way out, he noticed Keith standing by the door with a sour look on his face.

“Keith? Something wrong?” he asked tentatively. Keith flinched at the sound of his voice and his expression immediately went blank.

“It’s fine,” he mumbled, quickly walking away. Shiro shook his head as he watched the boy hurry away from him for the second time in less than 24 hours, and he was pretty sure he hadn’t even done anything this time. This was definitely going to be harder than he thought.

Keith, however, was cursing himself for every step he took away from Shiro. Why was he upset? He didn’t have any reason to be. It wasn’t like he was upset because Shiro had complimented that idiot instead of him. That would be ridiculous. Besides, as much as he didn’t like the idea, Lance did make a particularly impressive move to protect him from the training bots. He had to begrudgingly admit that the blue paladin had improved vastly in the year since they first formed Voltron. He was still a showoff, sure, but he'd learned well under Shiro's guidance, and could actually be a pretty valuable team player. Meanwhile, Keith had somewhat... stagnated. He knew he was off his game today, at least. As someone who relied mostly on his instincts, being even slightly distracted could be disastrous.

Keith pushed his way through a large set of doors and onto one of the upper decks. He hadn't really been walking anywhere in particular, just trying to get somewhere else and fast, and he had somehow ended up here. It wasn't a bad spot to be alone. The whole sky was visible from here. He found solace in the stars a lot, living alone in the desert. He could always watch those familiar lights, always watch and wait for some sign of Shiro returning.

He leaned forward against the deck railing and tilted his head up. These weren’t the same stars as his desert sky, though. There wasn’t a single familiar shape among these constellations. Keith sighed and hung his head, his hair falling into his face. They were a long way from Earth, after all. Nothing was the same anymore. Not even Shiro. Especially not Shiro. He’d gotten him back after all this time, but he hadn’t. Shiro still had that same stupidly pretty grin, that same big heart, that same effortless leadership. But he was still somehow so damn far away. Last night talking to him just confirmed it. Maybe it was because of that year that had been stolen from him on that Galra ship. Hell, it probably was. Shiro was always too noble for his own goo--

A loud, braying laugh cut Keith off from his reverie, so he turned around. It was muffled by the doors, but still undeniably Lance. Seconds later, the blue paladin pushed them open, his arm slung casually over Shiro’s shoulders. Lance was still making noises that sounded obnoxiously like a donkey, and Shiro was quietly laughing as well. He seemed totally comfortable, relaxed, close. The scene plowed into Keith like a bus. It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t fair. Stupid annoying Lance was by Shiro’s side instead of him when he was there first, it wasn’t fair. It wasn’t. It was--

Oh.

...Oh.

Keith felt so incredibly stupid. He knew his cheeks were burning from shame, knew he was staring with his mouth open. He couldn’t help it; he could never help how goddamn dense he was about other people. This though, this was something else entirely.

It felt like an eternity, but it really must’ve only been seconds because the two just seemed to notice Keith. Lance jerked his arm back to his side, blushing slightly. Unbelievable.

“Oh hey, Keith! Fancy, uh, fancy seeing you here!” Lance stammered out, nervously scratching the back of his neck. Shiro’s eyes narrowed and he elbowed the boy. “What?” he squawked.

Keith snapped his mouth shut, grit his teeth. He’d seen enough.

“Don’t mind me, I’m not going to intrude on your alone time. I was just leaving.” Lance seemed to recoil from the venom in his words. Good. Keith took the opportunity to push past the taller boy and out the door. He should’ve just gone to his room in the first place. He was such an idiot.

So much for his stargazing spot.

********

Lance visibly deflated as Keith pushed past him and stormed away. Shit. He knew his greeting wasn’t exactly smooth, but what the hell had pissed the boy off so much? And “alone time”? Seriously, what the hell?

“Hey, don’t let it get to you.” Shiro gave him a reassuring pat on the back. “You know he gets into these moods sometimes.” Lance sighed.

“I know but… I just don’t get what I’m doing wrong? I thought today was a good day. He even smiled at one of my jokes during training.” Lance walked over to the railing of the deck, gloomily picking at his nails.

“Yeah, I thought so too. Or well, I thought he was mad at me, not you.” Shiro crossed his arms and frowned, looking up at the sky. Lance whipped his head around to glare at Shiro at that.

“Wait, what? Since when was he mad at you? Oh my god, Shiro, what did you dooooo--”

“Lance. It’s fine. I’m handling it.”

“Yeah, but what did you do? Fuuuuck, I shouldn’t have said anything to you; I should’ve just suffered in silence--” Lance dramatically draped himself over the railing. The castle was well over 10,000 years old; that probably couldn’t be safe, but whatever.

Shiro rubbed at his temples. “Lance. I said it’s fine, and I’m _handling it_. I never said this would be easy. Keith’s… not a guy who lets people in much.”

Lance snorted. “Understatement of the year.”

“You’ve gotta trust me here. He’ll come around. Eventually.” 

Lance really didn’t like the sound of that tacked-on eventually, but he supposed he was just gonna have to take it. Even though he’d messed up somewhere, (and Lance still wanted to know what he did, dammit) Shiro definitely seemed to know the best way to handle the moody red paladin. His heart throbbed. Shit. He really hoped there wasn’t something like seriously wrong with Keith or anything. He almost looked like a cornered animal when they had stumbled upon him on the deck. Lance would do anything to wipe that fear and anger away. Fuck.

“Yeah, yeah, father knows best, I got it.” he grumbled. He pulled himself up so he was just leaning heavily back against the railing. Which again, probably still not safe, but whatever. Shiro slowly turned to look at him with something between wonder and amusement in his eyes.

“What was that?” he asked, a shit-eating grin slowly spreading across his face. Lance froze as he realized what he had accidentally let slip.

“N-nothing! Nothing at all!” the boy desperately tried to backtrack, waving his arms frantically.

“Nope, I definitely heard you. You called me ‘father’, you can’t get out of this one--”

“Just watch me!” Lance yelled. He quickly made a break for the door, and shouted over his shoulder, “Great talk man, you can prove nothing!”

Shiro chuckled as he watched Lance flee with the last scraps of his pride. He really was a good kid. It almost made him not want to strangle him for getting him caught in the middle of this bullshit. Almost.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You know what they say about assuming, Keith.

There was nothing like burying your problems with extremely intense, aggressive physical activity. Those were words Keith Kogane lived by, and it had been working out great for him so far. He ducked under the the training bot’s sweeping blow and rolled to the side. He brought his own blade up to counter the strike slamming down toward his head. Gritting his teeth, he pushed harder against the bot and forced it to back off. 

He let a small smile work its way onto his face as he twirled his bayard in his hands to a better position, preparing for the simulator’s next move. The high-pitched scrape of metal-on-metal that sent vibrations zinging up his arms and rattled his teeth was all he needed. His problems narrowed down to the enemy in front of him. His world was black and white, and it was something he _got_. Sweat dripped down his face as the red paladin shifted to the offensive, hacking and slicing with a new ferocity, his moves devoid of their usual grace. It wasn't long before he had the bot pinned on the ground, his blade pressed against its neck.

“Level 7 simulation defeated. Continue with Level 8?” the robotic voice asked. Keith paused to step back and catch his breath for a minute, belatedly realizing he was panting. Damn, last time this level had demolished him. Guess all he needed was the right motivation.

And then he heard slow clapping coming from the observation deck. The dark-haired boy slowly turned around and looked up, his nerves still buzzing slightly from adrenaline. And of course, it was Shiro and Lance. Shiro’s arms were crossed in front of his chest and he looked impressed. Lance was the one clapping, although as soon as he saw Keith looking he shoved his hands in his pockets and pretended to not be interested. Keith tried to keep his eye from twitching. Of course, it was a lot easier to bury your problems when said problems didn't interrupt your coping mechanism.

“End simulation,” he called out, the irritation plain in his voice. He sheathed his bayard. The room shifted and the lights dimmed back, the training bot dematerializing into the floor. “What do you guys want?”

“You've really gotten amazing at this thing, Keith,” Shiro commented, brushing off his very pointed question.

“Pssh, he's okay. I totally could do better,” Lance scoffed. Shiro rolled his eyes, but you know what, no, he wasn't going to let it slide that easily. Yeah, Lance was just being Lance, but he was sick of it. Keith was sick of stupid Lance always trying to rile him up, goad him into a fight, never being serious about anything (except being seriously annoying.) Yeah, he'd been improving a lot lately, but that had just made him even cockier. Lance always loved shoving that whole rival thing down his throat. So, fuck it.

“Yeah? Prove it then,” Keith said as he took a step towards the observation deck challengingly. He wiped the sweat off his forehead with his arm, pushing his bangs out of his face, then glared up at Lance. “Because I’m starting to think you’re all talk, McClain.”

Lance was very clearly not expecting his taunts to work, or at least, not so soon. He seemed to look to Shiro for help, but the older man just shrugged, looking just as bewildered with the situation. Keith smirked. Your boyfriend isn’t going to help you out of this one, asshole. And ow, that thought stung, because that was the root of the problem. He was finally stepping up to this whole rival thing because Lance had became his rival for Shiro. This whole best paladin posturing thing was incidental, or rather, an end to his means.

“Ha, I’ll show you who’s talking, mullet!” Lance exited the observation deck and began pounding down the stairs to the training area. Shiro facepalmed. Keith agreed; not exactly the boy’s best comeback.

Lance had ditched his signature coat when he reappeared, stretching his arms and yawning. His fake boredom would’ve been more convincing if he wasn’t practically radiating nervous energy. Keith raised an eyebrow and the other boy drew his bayard. The blaster rested rather comfortably in his hands.

“L-level 8 simulation, start!” Lance commanded. The training bot rematerialized from the ground and whirred to life. “I’ll one-up you, _Kogane_ , and I won’t even need to break a sweat to do it--aah SHIT!” He narrowly dodged an energy blast that was aimed directly at his head.

Keith decided it was probably in his best interest to get out of the way before he got hit by a wayward shot of either Lance’s or the simulator’s. He headed up to the observation deck, only realizing once he was at the entrance the close proximity he would be to Shiro. Great. Well, he was here now. He already looked like an idiot hesitating at the door. He walked over to the window and saw Lance practically running for his life from the heavy fire the training bot was pouring down on him.

“God, the idiot’s gonna get himself killed. Why doesn’t he call off the simulator already?” Keith blurted out after a couple of minutes of watching Lance fail miserably. Shiro briefly glanced at the younger boy before returning to watching Lance. His arms were crossed again, but the gesture was a lot more closed off this time.

“You challenged him. He never backs down when it comes to you.” 

“His pride isn’t gonna matter when he’s dead.” He really needed to shut up. He usually had the opposite problem, what was up with him today? Oh yeah, right. Lance was up with him today. An awkward silence descended for a few beats.

“He’s really not a bad guy, you know.”

“Huh?”

“Lance. He’s not a bad guy. He’s a pretty great one, actually. The kid tries so hard, it’s, it’s pretty damn endearing. Frustrating, but endearing.” A small smile was playing at Shiro’s lips. Lance managed to get a decent shot in at the training bot, but it was still coming as strong as ever. That small smile, that soft look drove a sharp pang through Keith’s chest. He knew he needed to quit giving voice to these ugly feelings worming their way through his gut, but he just couldn’t stop.

“We must be talking about a different person. Lance McClain? Try hard? At anything? He wouldn’t know what hard work or focus was if it bit him in the ass,” Keith scoffed. Shiro actually turned to look at him this time.

“Yeah, Keith, Lance works just as hard, if not harder, than everyone else on this team. He doesn’t look it, I know, but he does. I’ve seen it.” The feelings brewed uglier and uglier. Keith forced them down. For Shiro. It would alienate Shiro even worse. He would endure this terrible heavy silence punctuated by Lance getting his ass kicked in the background for Shiro.

Eventually, Shiro sighed. “Look, I know you don't like him. I'm not stupid. But he's your teammate. Try to give him a chance, alright? For me.”

Well, fuck. He was screwed. Keith couldn't say no to Shiro, not when he was quietly pleading with him like that. Not under any circumstances, really. He would go to hell and back for Shiro. So he guessed he would endure this private hell of tolerating Lance for him. Besides, it wasn’t like he was going to do anything more than he was doing now. Keeping his distance and staying quiet, how hard would it be to continue this routine?

“Fine. I'll… I'll give it a shot.” Shiro smiled at that, a bright, genuine thing. Keith swallowed dryly. His chest hurt from the swarm of guilt and shame and something else.

“That's all I ask, man. Now… maybe you should get out of here? I seriously don't think he's gonna stop until you leave.” Shiro jerked a thumb back, gesturing to Lance. That sounded like a great idea. Getting away from Shiro and his too earnest smiles sounded like a great idea.

“Oh. Yeah, of course. Tell him I had to take a shower, or whatever.” 

He took his leave all too quickly, letting himself breathe a sigh of relief as soon as he got out of the balcony. It seemed running away from Shiro was becoming part of this routine when it came to Lance, and he hated it. Hated Lance, for putting him through this in the first place, but he hated himself the most for being so pathetic and letting Lance’s antics get to him.

************

“He hates me.” Lance moped as he sat alongside Shiro. They had left the training area a little while ago, and were currently having a light snack before lunch. Shiro munched on some alien chips. They were dry, but not entirely inedible.

“He doesn’t hate you.” Shiro patted Lance’s shoulder. “You just come on too strong. Maybe you should try being nicer to him.”

Groaning, Lance let his head fall onto the table with a loud thunk and he wrapped his arms around his head. Shiro sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. There was no point in talking to Lance right now, not with the way Keith had challenged him so fiercely earlier. That normally wouldn’t have been that big of a problem, if it hadn’t been for the way Keith’s entire body screamed frustration and the way his eyes pierced through Lance with such unadulterated loathing. 

Shiro couldn’t, for the life of him, understand why Lance just couldn’t be nicer to Keith. It wouldn’t be hard at all, so why was it so difficult for Lance take a hint? Or perhaps, maybe he did know and just didn’t know how to talk to Keith normally. Whatever the reason, they couldn’t go on like this forever, and Shiro couldn’t let it get worse or else it could jeopardize the team.

“Yeah. He does,” Lance said quietly, his voice muffled by his arms.

“What?” Shiro was distracted from his spiraling thoughts, momentarily forgetting what he had last said. “Oh, Keith? No, I’m telling you, you just--”

“Shiro.” Lance lifted his head, and the words died on the older man’s tongue. Lance’s face was completely serious and if anything he just looked… tired. Haggard, even. “I know you’re trying to be nice, and make me feel better, and, and, whatever else. But just stop, okay? Don’t patronize me.”

Shiro swallowed and looked away. The weird alien chips he was eating were now completely unappetizing. Of course Lance knew. It was obvious, and the kid was just coping with it the best he could. His coping still entailed poking the bear with a stick, but when did Lance ever do things the easy way? He supposed he should really start giving him a little more credit.

“Hey, why don’t you go outside and take a breather?” Shiro suggested after a long beat of uncomfortable silence. Lance thought about it for a moment before nodding, his face schooling itself back into a half-hearted smile.

“Sure, I could use some fresh air. Well, as fresh as air gets out in space. Stretch my muscles, wouldn’t want them getting cramped after that training session, and all that.” He glanced at Shiro before turning his gaze to the floor, still obviously tense. Shiro just leaned back in his chair. Talking any more was just going to make things worse. Lance’s pride had been wounded enough today. He didn’t waste any more time, and took his opportunity to get out. Shiro sighed. He didn’t know how much more he could really help Lance. The two boys were just going to have to work it out themselves at some point. And sooner rather than later, because everyone needed to start making defeating Zarkon the number one priority. The Galra had been relatively quiet as of late, but he knew that wouldn’t last for long. Shiro just hoped Keith had listened to him earlier, and the moody boy would let Lance down a little easier, at least.

**************

Unfortunately for Lance, there wasn’t really any way to get fresh air in outer space on an alien castle ship. Sure, there were the upstairs stargazing decks, but being surrounded by an unfamiliar sky with the enormity of the galaxy pressing down on him sounded like a recipe for anxiety he really didn’t need right now. The air was always too thin up there, anyway. The air always seemed to be a little too thin everywhere in the castle, so it was probably an Altean/human respiratory difference or something. He should ask Hunk. No one else had ever complained about it, though, so it was probably all in his head. Not even Pidge had, and between their binder and natural candor, they definitely would’ve. So yeah. Totally a him problem. That was cool. Hey, when did he start breathing this fast? He should probably get out of this cramped hallway.

Lance burst unceremoniously into the first open room he saw. Which of course, just so happened to be the “common room” that Hunk and Pidge had staked out as their tinkering lab. And both of them had to be present, intently focused on rewiring some ridiculously complicated looking gadget. Whatever. He didn’t want to know. He would rather not be around people right now period, but he’d already made way too much noise with his entrance and-- hmm. Maybe he could just back out without them noticing, they did seem to be pretty engrossed in whatever the hell they were doing--

“What is it, Lance,” Pidge deadpanned, without lifting an eye from their work. Aaaand just like that, he was stuck. Great.

“Haha, what, does a guy need an excuse to come see his two best buds?” Lance tried to play it cool, but even he could hear how nervous his laughter sounded. And how fast he was talking. Damn, could his lungs slow down for like, two seconds?

“No, but you know better than to interrupt us here after _last time_ ,” Pidge said. Lance shuddered. He didn’t know how he’d forgotten about last time, even for a moment. He was picking bits of that alloy out of unspeakable places for days. At least this gave him an excuse to flee the situation.

“Oh yeah, whoops, my bad. Don’t want a repeat of that, nope, I’ll just, I’ll be going then. See you guys at dinner--”

“Not so fast, man,” Hunk cut in as he was seconds away from escaping. His hand was over the unlock pad and everything. Dammit. “Are you okay?”

“Yep!” Lance squeaked out without turning around. Fuck. “Everything’s chill. I am cool as a cucumber. That’s me. They should call me Lance McCucumber, ‘cause that’s just how cool I am.”

Hunk sighed and carefully set down his tools. He peeled off his safety goggles and murmured to Pidge that they could work on this later, much to the smaller paladin’s annoyance. When they actually looked up and saw how rigid Lance was, however, they immediately backed off.

“Yeah, okay, and I’m engaged to Allura. Dude. What happened?” The larger boy tried inching forward towards him, but that just made Lance wind up even tighter.

“Nothing! Like I said, everything’s peachy! Fun times! Best training session I’ve ever had! Nothing went wrong at all!”

“Whoa, whoa, slow down, dude. Back up. Breathe. _Breathe_. Okay. What happened during your training session?” Lance hated Hunk’s stupid soothing presence and how he could disarm him with a couple calming words, fuck. He deflated and slowly turned around, stalking over to the couch pushed over to the far corner of the room and flopping face-first onto it.

“Keith,” was all he was able to manage. Hunk and Pidge exchanged a look. Lance didn’t need to be able to see them to know it was happening and boy, did he not like that look.

“Keith, huh. What did ‘pretty boy’ do this time?” Hunk asked, sounding considerably less worried. He walked over to the end of the couch with his arms crossed and stood above the sprawled-out blue paladin, waiting. Lance tried not to get angry at his friend. He knew he complained about Keith constantly (although he’d started using Shiro as his confidant lately after _last time_ when Pidge and Hunk officially got sick of his whining.) So yeah, Hunk didn’t really have any reason to think this time was all that serious, and he knew he was probably being a huge drama queen anyway, but, shit. The panic was starting to seep away and just leaving hurt in its wake.

“He fucking hates me, is what,” Lance mumbled into the couch cushion. He knew Pidge was rolling their eyes as they hopped up to sit on their work table, dramatic as ever. That couldn’t possibly be safe.

“Oh my god, he doesn’t hate you. You guys don’t actually hate each other; you just use your rivals thing as a thin mask for your sexual tension.”

“Pidge!” Hunk exclaimed. “Not appropriate right now. Very true, but not appropriate.”

Lance groaned loudly, even muffled as he was by the couch. “Wow, shut the hell up. You assholes wanted me to to talk, then let me talk.” He was met with an expectant silence. He swallowed thickly. Great. He moved his face slightly out of the couch so they could hear him better.

“Keith like, actually hates me. No. Shut up. He does. You can ask Shiro. We walked in on him demolishing a level 7 training bot-- I know, right, a level 7, what the fuck-- but anyway, I was being my usual self because I can’t talk to boys apparently-- _Hunk shut your mouth I swear to God_. But Keith, he just… straight up challenged me with basically no provocation. He’s just… been like this all week. Snapping at me before I get the chance to even do anything. He’s suddenly gotten really into the whole rivals thing and he’s being so vicious about it. And I know it’s my fault, I fucked up somewhere and got him to actually hate me but I don’t know what and--”

“Okay, Lance. Lance. Breathe. Just breathe, buddy, it’ll be alright.” At some point Hunk had kneeled down on the floor next to him and was rubbing soothing circles into his shoulder. That was nice. “So what exactly was his challenge? Did you have to fight him, or?”

“No, no, I had to, uh. Do better than him in the simulator.”

Hunk’s eyes widened. “You fought a level 8 training bot? Dude. Are you hurt? That is so way out of your league it’s not even funny.” Lance huffed a breath out of his nose.

“Thanks, man. I know. And I made it out alive even after like six minutes with it, so that’s what matters. I’m probably bruised to hell, but I don’t feel it yet, so. Ha.”

Hunk chuckled. “Your pride is seriously gonna get you killed one day, you know that?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m well aware.” Lance smiled, and it actually felt somewhat genuine. Hunk, you big beautiful miracle worker. He felt like enough of a human being that he could sit up now. When he did, he noticed Pidge was still sitting nervously on their work table. He gave them a wink, and that seemed to be dissolve their worries well enough.

“Hey. I still don’t want to touch this whole fiasco with you and Keith with a 10 foot pole, but… I think Keith’ll get over it. You said Shiro saw all this, so. He’ll probably talk to him and you two will be able to get this thing sorted out,” Hunk said. Lance wasn’t that reassured, especially since the situation had really only exploded ever since Shiro got involved, but. He did trust Shiro, and he knew Hunk was trying his best.

“Try flirting with him. Maybe it’ll confuse him enough he’ll forget to be pissed off,” Pidge smirked. Lance threw a cushion at them. They shrieked as it came close to hitting their latest project and batted it out of the air and onto the floor. This, however, caused them to lose their balance and they tumbled onto the floor with it. Lance and Hunk cackled as the small paladin flipped them off.

Yeah, maybe things would be alright after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> spoilers: they won't
> 
> Thank you all so much for the kudoses and comments! I'll be updating every Thursday, with additional chapters whenever I'm unusually productive.  
> Follow [me](im-just-too-cynical.tumblr.com) and my wonderful beta [Diane](dianeofarc.tumblr.com) on Tumblr to discuss this fic or anything Voltron-related!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Houston, we have a problem.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Check the tags. End-notes will have the specific details if you're easily squicked/triggered by these things.

“Hey guys, ready to be amazed by how totally cool I’m gonna be?” Lance struck a pose, putting one hand on his hip and the other behind his head.

“Oh, can it, Lance.” Pidge grumbled, climbing into the green lion. “We’re just doing some scouting on Neborion. Just hurry up so we can get it over with.”

Lance frowned and his shoulders sagged briefly, but he quickly regained his posture after glancing at Keith. Not that he would’ve noticed, since Keith was very obviously avoiding him. Of course, what else would he expect? Shiro was right, he wasn’t exactly the nicest person to him. But Keith was so _frustrating_ , especially lately, and gah, he was an idiot. Rule number one, Lance, don’t be an ass to the boy you like. Flattery gets you everywhere, remember?

That, however, was easier said than done. It wasn’t like he could just do a total 180 and suddenly put the moves on him or something. Keith would probably kill him. Scratch that, definitely kill him. It would be super obvious, and he was sure Keith would find it suspicious. What if he thought Shiro put him up to it? Okay, that was partly true, but that was beside the point. Or what if Keith put two-and-two together? Nope, no way, he absolutely refused to have Keith find out on any terms but his own. He was going to tell him for sure. Maybe. Eventually, when he could be sure Keith didn’t totally hate his guts and didn’t want him galaxies away.

“Hey Keith, be safe out there,” he mumbled quickly before rushing past Hunk and Shiro and saying the same to them, but louder.

*************

Keith was about to have an aneurysm, he was sure of it.

He was really trying to be the bigger person here. Shiro deserved to be happy, after all, and as his friend Keith was doing his damndest to be happy for him. He really was. He had listened to Shiro blabber on and on about stupid goddamn Lance for weeks with relatively little hair-tearing. But he was only human, and if the Voltron Power Couple over here wouldn’t stop flirting over the comms during a _mission_ , then he was seriously going to lose his shit.

“Okay, so stop me if you guys have heard this one before. Shiro and I were--”

“Lance, you only ever tell the same seven or eight stories, and I haven’t slept in 36 hours. Shut the fuck up and focus on getting in and out of here,” came a very tired, very annoyed voice from the Green Lion. Keith decided that Pidge was his new favorite. He could always count on them to have an even lower tolerance than him for Lance’s bullshit.

“ _Language_ , Pidge!” Lance gasped like he was scandalized. Keith could practically hear the smaller paladin roll their eyes.

“I’m literally a month older than you, dude, why are you like this,” they groaned.

“Yeah, but you look like you’re 14. I can’t help it you’re such a cinnamon roll, too pure, too good for--”

“I’m a cinnamon roll who’s gonna actually kill you if you don’t shut the fuck up and focus.”

“Actually, I think Pidge is more of a _sin_ namon roll,” Hunk interjected.

Keith jerked his controls to the right, narrowly missing slamming into a boulder that appeared out of the dense fog. Shit. This planet was hard enough to navigate without everyone bickering in his ear.

“Hey guys, could maybe everybody shut up?” he called, yanking on his thrusters. Maybe getting some higher ground would help his visibility? No, the fog was too dense. Dammit, these lions needed headlights or something. “This is supposed to be a stealth mission.”

“Keith’s right,” Shiro said, “All of you, lay off each other. We need to scout out the area and try to locate that abandoned Galra base. They could have some vital information stored there about their troop movements.” 

“Okay, cool, but if the Galra already abandoned the place, then why do we have to care about stealth again?” Lance asked, with a helpful addition to the conversation as always.

“Because we don’t know what made them abandon the base in the first place, and we can’t be sure they’re completely gone. There’s also something about this place that’s jamming the signal so we can’t get through to Allura, so we’re without backup.” Lance grumbled, and the Blue Lion briefly darted into Keith’s limited view before disappearing into the mist. Shiro sighed. “It’s best to err on the side of caution, alright?” Keith took a little bit of smug satisfaction in the fact that Shiro sounded like his patience was wearing thin. Ha, so much for your banter on _this_ mission, lovebirds.

“Uh, guys? I think I might have an idea of what made the Galra jump ship,” Hunk said nervously. An enormous inhuman screech could be heard in the distance. A grainy photograph of a shadowy, terrifying almost pterodactyl-looking thing got uploaded on Keith’s viewport. “I’m uploading my coordinates now. Oh, quiznak, I think it just noticed me. Maybe hurry? I think we’re gonna need Voltron to take this thing down.”

“We’re on our way,” Shiro said. Coordinates began flashing on Keith’s viewport and he immediately sped toward the location. He was actually pretty close, and as he rounded a bend he saw the creature. And wow, it was even more of a nightmare in real life. He saw Hunk spraying the beast’s belly with artillery, but it didn’t seem to have much of an effect. That was probably the safest place for him, though, since the Yellow Lion wasn’t going to be agile enough to engage the thing properly. Keith shifted his course upward to help him, leaping onto the thing’s neck and tearing at the skin. Well, what he thought was skin. It was actually armor, and incredibly strong armor too. His lion wasn’t even making a dent in it.

The creature made that screeching noise again, and ow, ow, ow, that was really loud and piercing up close. It abruptly twisted its neck and Keith was shaken off. He darted away, pausing to regroup. That was a good move on his part, because the pterodactyl-thing’s jaw almost unhinged and let loose a stream of fire right where his lion had just been. Holy shit, why were there fire-breathing dinosaurs on a deserted foggy planet? That just wasn’t fair.

“Keith, be careful!” Hunk’s voice cut in.

“Oh no, don’t tell me Mr. Hotshot got to the action before I did,” Lance sneered, although it didn’t sound like his heart was in it. He just sounded worried, if anything. Weirdo.

“I’m careful,” Keith said through gritted teeth. “The rest of you just hurry your asses up.” He dived back in, shooting bullets this time. Come on, come on. He noticed the armor was plated. If he focused his fire in one of the chinks, that should do the trick. The creature twisted again, this time swiping at him with a claw that seemed to come out of nowhere. He dodged at the last second, only enduring a minor scrape to his lion, as opposed to the skewer that might’ve happened. He pushed his bangs out of his face, and started to bob and weave around the thing’s head, trying to confuse it. Fine, you want to play like this? No problem. Keith began charging up his blasters.

“Keith!” Shiro yelled, “We’re all assembled. Stand down, we need to form Voltron.” His blasters were at 30%. “Keith! I said stand down!” 45%, 47%, 50%.

“Shiro, I don’t think he’s… I think he’s trying to go in for the kill with his blasters.” Even Pidge was starting to sound worried. Sorry, Pidge. Keith knew he could take this thing down on his own. He’d show them how much better he was than Lance. He’d show Shiro. He could _handle_ this stupid goddamn dragon dinosaur thing.

“Hey, asshole, you better leave some of that thing for me.” What?

“Lance, no, don’t you dare go off guns blazing on me too,” Shiro warned. Oh no, no, no, no. Lance was not going to take this from him. His blasters were at 86%.

“Sorry, man. I can’t let our buddy Keith here take all the glory.” 93%. The creature was starting to gear up for some kind of ultimate attack as well. Looked like it’d be a shootout after all.

“Lance! KEITH! Both of you fall back immediately! This is an order, STAND DOWN!” Keith had never heard Shiro sound so desperate and pissed. Granted, he didn’t think he and Lance had every blatantly went against direct orders in a combat situation, either. Oh well. He wasn’t about to pull out now. His blasters were at 98%, 99%, fully charged. Here we go.

Just as he fired, he was slammed violently to the side. A gigantic fireball exploded next to him. His own blast went incredibly off-course, but instead of hitting the chink in the armor he was aiming for, it launched directly into the beast’s still-open mouth. The screech it let out this time sounded very different, much more like a scream of extreme pain. It began to twitch and spasm, before jerkily flapping its wings in an attempt to fly away and retreat. It wasn’t able to get very far, however, before its spasmic flying petered out and it began to nosedive. The fog was too dense to see much further, but if it wasn’t already dead, it likely impaled itself on the rocks below. Keith shakily let out a deep breath he hadn’t even known he was holding, slowly loosening his hands from the vice-grip he had on his controls.

He slowly turned to see what had slammed him out of the way of that fireball, and there was the Blue Lion. He realized he could hear Lance softly panting underneath the cheers and noises of relief coming through the comms from the rest of the team.

“Don’t you ever do something stupid like that again. Don’t do that to m--the team ever again, alright?” Lance murmured, barely audible, almost like he knew Keith was listening for him. Shock slammed into the red paladin, at Lance’s apparent concern for him, at everything that had just happened. Underneath that though, rage bubbled up, as familiar as an old friend.

“Yeah, like you’re one to talk, idiot. You pull risky shit like this all the time, so you don’t get to give me this lecture.” He struggled to keep his voice down, not particularly wanting the team to overhear this conversation. He was probably in enough trouble as it was.

“Yeah, but,” Lance huffed, “That’s kind of my specialty, not yours. Promise me you won’t do this again.” The ball of rage deep in Keith’s gut burned a little brighter. The day he let Lance McClain get high and mighty on him was a cold day in hell.

“Tch. You probably just rushed in to impress Shiro in anyway,” the words fell like acid off his tongue, even though he knew they weren’t true. “You just knocked into me to mess up my shot; you wanted to take the win for yourself.” Lance made a muffled, frustrated little scream.

“Fuck you, man. Just promise me.” Keith dragged a hand down his face and scoffed. Fine. He didn’t give one shit about Lance, so what did it matter what he promised him?

“I promise. Now let’s go check in with the team and get off this hell-rock.”

Lance sighed. “Fine by me.” They both steered their lions downward, knowing Shiro was going to make them pay dearly for this.

They landed carefully on the jagged, rocky ground. Shiro, Hunk, and Pidge had already done the same, but they had exited their lions and were walking around several feet away. That was weird. Keith assumed that Shiro would want them to abort the mission and return to the castle immediately. He tried to stuff down the uneasy foreboding feeling this gave him.

“Guys…. You’re gonna wanna come over here,” Pidge said quietly. Oh, shit. This was really not good. Keith unbuckled his seatbelt and put on his helmet, sliding out of the cockpit and onto the ground. Lance did the same and they uneasily walked over together. When they joined their teammates, Keith realized they had fucked up worse than he ever could have imagined.

There, in a crater, was a large nest. Five baby (at least, that’s what Keith assumed. They were still twice the size of their lions.) pterodactyl-looking creatures were squawking and nosing at each other. Their noises… well, their noises sounded hurt and confused. Keith felt sick. The beast had just… been trying to protect its young. He dared a glance at his teammates, and, shit, it was exactly what he expected. Pidge was deathly still, their face completely blank. Lance was completely shocked, his eyes blown comically wide. Hunk was trying not to cry and very visibly failing. And Shiro, huh, well. Keith thought Shiro was pissed earlier, but it turned out he hadn’t seen anything yet.

Shiro’s normally calm and collected face was completely replaced with an expression of pure agony. Keith had never seen Shiro so hurt, so vulnerable. His throat burned with guilt and shame. Then, Shiro felt Keith’s eyes on him and slowly turned towards him, his eyebrows narrowing and his features twisting with anger.

“This. This is what happens when you disregard orders. If you had backed off and we paused to regroup, we would’ve found the babies and realized that creature wasn’t really a threat. Or at least, a threat to do as little damage as possible to,” Shiro said, his voice shaking slightly. Keith swallowed and looked at the ground. At Shiro’s too-quiet words, Lance seemed to come back to reality.

“Fuck, what did we do?” he whispered, raking his hand through his hair. Shiro turned on him too just as quickly.

“Both of you went completely AWOL, is what you did. This is…” he laughed humorlessly, “I’m disappointed in you two. You’re better than this. You _were_ doing better than this, at being a team, at responsibility.”

Lance seemed to bristle slightly at that. “Keith went nuts! I know I disobeyed your orders but he would’ve been blown to pieces otherwise! I had to sa--”

“I know exactly what you did and why you did it, Lance. But that doesn’t mean you get any kind of free pass here.” Shiro’s words were ice, and they chilled Lance enough to get him to bite his tongue. Keith felt his eyes burn.

“So… what happens now?” Keith heard himself ask. His voice sounded distant, far away, like it belonged to somebody else.

Shiro sighed. “Get in your lions. We’re heading back, and I’m letting Allura deal with this, because frankly, I’m too disgusted to.” Pidge and Hunk started to shuffle back to their lions, but Keith and Lance froze in fear.

“H-Hey, Shiro, let’s not be so hasty, maybe not tell Allura right away…?” The look Shiro sent Lance made the boy wither and he was silent for the rest of the trip back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning details: The team goes on a mission and is attacked by a monster, and Keith goes somewhat AWOL and ends up killing it by accidentally shooting a blaster into its mouth. Afterwards, the team finds the monster's babies that it was trying to protect, and will likely die without their parent.
> 
> Thank you guys for the kudoses, and don't forget to leave a comment!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Allura gets involved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warning for Shiro starting to dissociate in the first two paragraphs.

Shiro was on autopilot as he landed and parked his lion back on the castle. Everything felt dull, like from behind a pulsing kind of haze. He could feel his anger, his disappointment, but they seemed distant, an arm’s length away from him. He vaguely registered voices over the comms, but they were faded into the static haze. 

This was… those two had gone too far this time. He kept trying to tell himself to pull himself together, it’s not like they had known, it’s not like they could have known. None of them had known until after the threat was taken down, when his relieved sigh caught in his throat and he heard the confused squawking of those babies. If they had stopped to form Voltron, would he still have heard them, noticed them, in the heat of battle? He didn’t know. All he knew is dead kids on his conscience just brought him back to the belly of that Galra ship in disjointed pieces, standing out too sharp amidst the haze.

“Shiro!” And somehow Allura’s voice cut through, pulling him back to reality. She sounded pretty frantic, shit. “Shiro, what happened? No one’s saying a word! I lost contact not long after you all left, and I hate to say, I feared the worst.”

“Allura.” He winced as his voice cracked slightly. “I’m here. I’m fine, we’re all fine. The mission was a failure. I’m... going to need to fill you in on the rest in person.” He could hear Coran making very relieved noises in the background.

“...Alright. I’ll see you shortly then,” Allura said, a suspicious frown obvious in her tone. The rest of the paladins were eerily silent. They’d learned their lesson, he supposed. Shiro exhaled loudly and released the controls of his lion. He realized his fingers were cramped. Shit. When had he started vice-gripping those controls? His whole body was a taut wire of tension. He groaned and dragged a hand across a face before climbing out of his lion. He was really too tired to deal with any of this. He supposed that was the point of getting Allura in on it, but it wasn’t like he wanted to have that conversation right now, either.

When he showed up to the control room, he didn’t know what he was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t an extremely enthusiastic hug from Coran.

“You really gave us a bit of a scare there, Shiro,” the mustached man said into his shoulder. Shiro patted his back awkwardly just feeling vaguely uncomfortable. He loved Coran, but he really wasn’t in the mood right now. Although, he did feel pretty guilty for apparently worrying him so much. Allura cleared her throat from across the room.

“So.”

Coran stepped back with a cough and Shiro slowly made his way to a chair across from her. He all but collapsed into it as he sat down. He really didn’t want to deal with this, but he did sign up for it, unfortunately.

“So.” He paused for a minute, trying to collect his thoughts. “The mission was… a failure, like I said. But probably not for the reasons you’re expecting. There was no Galra presence, at least, none that we saw. Although I don’t know what was jamming our comm signals… but, anyway, uh, we encountered other trouble. Specifically, a giant winged lizard monster that breathed fire with black armor for skin.” Allura’s eyes widened and she slowly sank down in a chair as well, staring at Shiro.

“No… it couldn’t be…” she murmured. Shiro just stared back. That definitely wasn’t the reaction he was expecting. “Was… did the creature have claws and a distinctive, er, call, as well?” Shiro nodded slowly. The princess seemed almost excited as she turned to Coran, who was walking towards them and definitely excited.

“Coran, do you really think…? Oh, I can’t believe a few of them still survived!” Coran was very enthusiastically nodding now, seemingly overcome with emotion. Okay, this was starting to get weird. The situation might also be worse than Shiro thought.

“What… what are these creatures? How do you…?” Allura turned back toward him, her face alight with an enormous grin.

“Why, you’re describing an Eredos! Only some of the most magnificent beasts that ever flew in Altean skies! They’re truly a sight to behold, loyal and graceful… well, we were sure they were destroyed with the rest of Altea, but a few must have escaped to other planets. Perhaps the Galra tried to capture a few and they escaped and destroyed their forces… maybe that’s what happened to that base! Oh, how delightful!” she animatedly described.

“Nothing can quite inspire hope like an Eredos bravely flying through a fire storm or eating rocks out of the air. Alfor always did enjoy…” Coran trailed off, wiping a tear out of his eye. Shiro’s throat tightened. Oh, this was bad. This was really bad.

“I know. I know, but, it would be enough to just see one again, wouldn’t it?” Allura grabbed Coran’s hand and gave him a softer smile. She then looked back at Shiro. “Here I was thinking some sort of disaster happened. You humans can be terribly dramatic, you know that? Although, hmm, you found an Eredos, but why did the mission fail? They’re awfully docile creatures unless provoked.”

“Well, um, well.” It was nearly impossible to choke the words past the lump in his throat. “Let’s just say I knew they breathed fire for a reason. This one… it started coming after us without really being provoked. And it, well, it got out of hand. Keith got it out of hand. He… was determined to take the thing down. And he stopped listening to orders. He wouldn’t stand down so we could form Voltron.” Coran gasped. Shiro forced himself to carry on. 

“Then Lance… stopped listening to orders. The Eredos was about to blast Keith out of the sky with a fireball while his blasters were charging. Lance barrelled Keith out of the way and the blaster shot… it, it went into the creature’s mouth. It’s… dead, Allura. It’s dead and we found its nest right after. We left its brood there. We… we had to. I had to get the team out of there. I had to get out of there.” His head was in his hands at this point, unable to look at the two Alteans who just had a last piece of their planet ripped away they didn’t even know they had left.

“That’s impossible. Something, something must have already happened to that Eredos for it to react that way,” Allura whispered, sounding panicked.

Coran abruptly stood up and took a staggering step backwards. The impeccably-trained soldier had clearly been thrown completely off his balance by the news. He looked shell-shocked.

“I have to go,” he said, his voice all too quiet and broken sounding. He immediately turned on his heel and hurried out of the room. The sound of the door closing behind him rang out and caused Shiro to flinch slightly. It left the princess and the black paladin in a heavy silence.

“Well,” Allura said, her voice completely cold, all traces of her earlier giddiness gone. “This was certainly worse than I imagined.”

“You’re telling me,” Shiro weakly joked. It wasn’t appreciated. Allura stood up and began pacing agitatedly for a couple minutes before turning back to Shiro.

“Go get some sleep. We’re going to have an emergency training session in a few hours since you have all stopped functioning as a team. I can’t understand how the situation escalated to this point, especially without you intervening, but here we are. I’m going to need you at your top form,” she ordered.

Shiro swallowed. “Understood.”

************

“Paladins, please report to the training rooms immediately for an emergency session. This is not a request.”

Allura’s cold, clipped voice blaring over the intercoms jolted Shiro awake. Shit. She really wasn’t kidding when she said a few hours. He rubbed his eyes. His sleep had been relatively dreamless, too. Remembering that failed mission was enough to sober him up and wipe all thoughts of sleep from his mind, however. He shoved his feet into his boots and hurried out of his room into the hallway. This training session sure was going to be a _blast_.

Surprisingly, he wasn’t the first paladin to arrive to the training room. Pidge was already there standing at attention, their jaw locked and their eyes drooping suspiciously. Shiro stifled the urge to scream. No wonder they beat him here, they still hadn’t slept! With how much they were snapping at Lance earlier, Shiro thought the first thing the tiny paladin would do after getting back would be to collapse into bed. Then he remembered how silent and tense they had been when they found the Eredos babies, and he realized that maybe Pidge staying up hadn’t been irresponsibility for once. He felt almost guilty for the little bit of rest he’d gotten now.

One by one, the rest of the paladins shuffled in. Hunk was next, then Keith, then Lance (Lance was always, always the last one to show up.) Shiro surveyed them one by one. Pidge was only standing up by pure willpower, Hunk still looked worn out but mostly together, his hands fidgeting slightly at his sides. Keith looked completely shut down and was standing as far away as possible from Lance. And Lance, well. Lance looked like shit. Shiro could see circles under his eyes, and that boy never skimped on his personal care routine.

With all five paladins standing in a row, Allura began pacing in front of them, her hands clasped behind her back. The princess was quite intimidating when she wanted to be, but this was on a whole other level. In the few hours since Shiro had seen her, her features had completely hardened into a mask of stone cold fury.

“I know being the defenders of the galaxy is not an easy task. It was not one you necessarily volunteered for, but one you were chosen for. Your lives are not easy. But the events that occurred on Neborion today were beyond inexcusable. Your actions today were completely unbefitting of the paladins of Voltron, and for better or worse, you are our paladins.” Ice was dripping from Allura’s every word. Lance was shrinking deeper and deeper into himself every minute.

“You must work as a team. You must work as one, but recently, you have all gotten completely out of sync with one another. In fact,” Allura abruptly stopped pacing for a second to look them all over. “You are so impossibly lucky you encountered an Eredos instead of the Galra, because I doubt you could even _form_ Voltron right now. Look at you.” Even Keith stiffened at that. Shiro was a little surprised at Allura. They had fucked up, yes, and there might even be some truth to what she was saying, but that was a low blow. Against his better judgement, he spoke.

“I think that’s going a little too far. Allura, I assure you--” Allura rounded on him in fury, her eyes blazing.

“Shiro, I know you perhaps have the most on your plate, but you lost control of your team. You cannot assure me of anything right now.” The words were like a slap in the face. He bit his tongue. She was right, after all. She was right.

“I do, however, welcome the challenge to prove me wrong,” she said, resuming her pacing. “We’re going to begin our training session by practicing mind-melding again. If you’ve stopped being a team, we’re just going to have to build from the ground up again.”

She abruptly turned and pressed a few buttons on a panel, and the room shifted and morphed into one that was completely blank, with only a neon blue circle on the floor. The princess walked out and up to the observation deck without another word. Begrudgingly, all five of the paladins sat down at a point of the circle just like they had done all those months ago when they first attempted mind-melding. They all put on the headsets that were lying there waiting for them.

“Good. Now focus on clearing your minds of anything that is not Voltron. Clear your minds and open them to your teammates. Visualize your lions,” came Allura’s voice from over the comms. Shiro breathed out slowly. Okay, back to the basics. This was easy. They could all do this no problem. He formed the Black Lion in his mind’s eye, and he noticed the holograms of the Yellow and Green Lions appear about the same time as his own. Good. He was proud of Pidge for coming so far since the first time, especially considering how exhausted and distraught he knew they were.

“Visualize your lions and let them float toward the center to form Voltron. Come on you two, clear your minds. Concentrate!” Allura repeated. Shiro turned his focus slightly toward Keith and Lance and felt his stomach drop. 

Keith’s mind was completely closed. Locked tight as a safe. He had formed a grainy image of the Red Lion, but as strained and frustrated as his face became, Red refused to move toward the other lions in the center. And Lance… Lance’s mind was unfortunately too open. He was trying to visualize Blue, but it kept flickering back to various images of Keith. Keith had seemed to notice this as well, and it was only adding to his frustrations.

“Dude, what the fuck!” he yelled, suddenly standing up and tearing off his headset. Shiro groaned as this broke everyone else’s concentration. “Why do you keep picturing me, what the hell?” Lance glared at him and pulled off his own headset, rising to meet his rival’s bait.

“Well, maybe it’s because you won’t do the exercise! It’s called _opening_ your mind, not sitting there like some kind of emo edgelord!”

“Maybe I don’t want you rooting around in my head, you creep!”

“I’m not rooting around in your head, I was trying to _open my mind_ to the exercise, unlike some people--”

“Silence!” Allura shouted over the din. So much for proving to her they could handle basic team-building exercises. “Both of you! I’m appalled. I thought you two were past this, this _infancy_.”

Pidge snorted. “That was your mistake, princess,” they muttered under their breath.

“What was that now?” Allura asked. The tiny paladin gulped.

“Uh, just that, those two being at each other’s throats is pretty much a universal constant,” they said.

“What, it is not!” Keith protested.

“Is too!” Lance jeered back.

“Lance, are you trying to get us more in trouble, because--”

“I rest my case,” Pidge said, crossing their arms.

“--you’re really succeeding!” Keith finished, spittle flying from his mouth.

“Alright, that’s enough!” Allura looked beyond frustrated now. “That is _enough_ from all of you. Everyone, take an hour’s break to cool off. We’ll try this again then.” Hunk was practically out of the door before she finished her sentence. He had somehow stayed silent the entire time and seemed extremely done with the situation. One by one, they filed out, and just as Shiro was about to leave, Allura spoke again.

“Not you, Shiro, we need to talk.” He did not like how ominous that sounded.

She walked down the stairs of the observation deck and showed up frowning with her arms crossed. She was radiating anger, but she also looked… confused.

“I don’t understand what’s gotten into them lately! Yes, they’re always bickering and whatnot, but they haven’t been this bad since the first few days, really. They can’t even get through a simple exercise without distracting one another. You’re close to both of them, or well, as close as Keith lets anyone be. You must have some idea.” Allura turned toward him, her eyes pleading for some kind of answer.

“I thought you didn’t want any assurances from me, princess,” Shiro said dryly. Allura flinched, a faint blush on her cheeks.

“You know I didn’t--you know I have the highest respect for you, Shiro. Please.” He gave her a half-smile.

“I know, I know.” He dragged a hand through his hair. Where to even begin explaining this mess? “Well, I can tell you Lance’s problem. He has… romantic feelings for Keith, but he can’t really express them properly. And, well, he knows Keith hates him, so that just makes him act out even worse. A never-ending spiral of antagonization.”

Allura frowned. “Hmm, well, that’s not entirely unexpected. It’s not my place to judge human courting customs, but that doesn’t seem the right way to go about changing Keith’s mind. Why does Keith hate him, at any rate?”

“That, I have no idea. Lance was always the one spearheading the whole rival thing for the most part. It’s… something different is going on with Keith,” Shiro sighed. “I… this is probably unrelated, but I’m pretty sure the kid has a little bit of a crush on me? Which just complicates things further, although I thought it would be an advantage when Lance asked me to talk to him…” He trailed off. There some very big piece of the puzzle he was missing here.

“Wait. You’ve been intervening already? And their little… lover’s spat still escalated to what it did on Neborion?”

“Uh…” Shiro scratched his neck. “Yes? Lance asked me to help him out, and I’ve been trying to get Keith to warm up to him, but it hasn’t really been working...Although, I wouldn’t call it a lover’s spat, like I said, I’m pretty sure Keith is interested in me, not--”

“Oh, Shiro, you’ve made a right muck of things!” Allura exclaimed, cutting him off.

“Thanks, but--”

“No buts! We’ve gotten into this mess because of all this secrecy and dropping hints about who-likes-who nonsense. I’m going to settle this once and for all!” Allura confidently turned on her heel and strode into the hallway. Shiro nervously followed her.

“Uh, Allura? What exactly do you mean you’re going to ‘settle’ it?” he called after her.

“We’re all going to have an, oh, what’s the term Hunk’s used? Ah, yes, a ‘feelings jam’!” She didn’t even turn around, just kept hurrying down the halls. Shiro really had a bad feeling about this. He caught up to her as she entered the dining area.

“Keith and Lance are both very private people; I really don’t think this is the right way to go about it, in front of everyone…”

“Shiro, you are wonderful and I appreciate you and everything you’ve done, but I think you’re too close to the situation to properly assess ‘the right way’ anymore. Need I remind you of the dead Eredos?” Allura put her hands on his shoulders and looked into his eyes. “Let me handle it from here. Everyone will be better off once the air is cleared.”

Shiro sighed. He couldn’t argue with that face. “I suppose…”

Allura grinned instantly. “Thank you.” She turned away from him and pressed a button on a side panel and spoke into the intercom on it.

“Break’s over, paladins. Sorry it hasn’t been very long, but I need you all to report to the dining hall immediately. We have some important matters to discuss.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is a day late, the school year has officially started for me so updates may no longer be reliably on Thursdays. I will still try to post a chapter per week, but we'll see how it goes.
> 
> As always, thank you for the kudos and please don't forget to leave a comment!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Light is shed on a few matters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *cracks knuckles* y'all ain't ready for this
> 
> Special shoutout/thanks to my beta Diane, who wrote the Spanish in this scene! The translation will be in the end notes. And per usual, please check the tags, they have been updated accordingly.

Lance was considering how much trouble he would be in if he just skipped whatever talk Allura was having, and just, took Blue and went on a joyride or something. It probably wasn’t worth it, since he knew she’d just kick his ass worse later. Still, it was pretty tempting, because man, he knew he was _not_ going to enjoy whatever was waiting for him in that dining hall.

He braced himself and opened the door and the whole team was sitting around the table waiting for him. Allura was smiling _way_ too much. Keith, Hunk, and Pidge looked tired and pissed off, and Shiro’s face was completely blank but he was sweating bullets. Okay, what the fuck guys, why did this look like an intervention?

“Lance, I’m so glad you could join us. Please, take a seat.” Allura gestured to the empty chair next to her. Yeah, he was regretting not getting out of here with Blue while he still could more and more every second. He awkwardly shuffled over to the open seat and plunked himself down into it. Allura hadn’t stopped smiling. This was getting really weird.

“Alright, now that we’re all here, we can begin attending to the matters at hand. Lance. Keith. I have come to understand that you two have been having… interpersonal difficulties lately, shall we say. I know there’s a lot of thorny, mixed-up feelings between you two, so. I thought it would be the best for everyone if you both air out your grievances plainly, and we can all work to sort them out and reach some sort of compromise between you two.”

“What?!”

“ _What._ ”

Hunk raised his hand. “Quick question,” he began, “This sounds like a Lance-Keith-specific issue, which, ya know, congrats for tackling that can of worms head-on, you’re the real MVP, Allura. But uh… can the rest of us leave now? Since this doesn’t involve us; I, me specifically do not want to be involved with this in any way.”

“Seconded,” Pidge piped up, already starting to stand.

“Certainly not! Pidge, sit down,” Allura ordered, sounding almost offended. Pidge sat down. “This is not just a Lance-Keith problem, this is a _team_ problem. We are all one team; we are all Voltron! And we are all going to work through this together.”

Wait a minute. “Thorny mixed-up feelings”...? Oh no. Lance looked at Shiro, then Allura, then back again. Shit, Shiro must’ve spilled the beans. Yep, Allura turned her smile toward him, and although he was sure it was meant to be encouraging, it just looked wolfish. It wasn’t that big of a deal since everyone else knew already, but still. This is exactly why he avoided mentioning anything to the Alteans. They tended to make everything a… public affair.

Keith, unsurprisingly, refused to talk. He just leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms, and sat there with that stupid (hot) intense brooding expression on his face. Which, whatever, that was fine, he didn’t want to talk either. Except now everybody was looking expectantly at him, and he knew that he’d crack under the pressure before Keith would, so, nope, he’s just gonna have to get out of here. 

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. I have no problems whatsoever. I’m on good terms with everybody, that’s me, Mr. Congeniality. Alright, good talk everyone, I’ll be leaving then.” Lance bolted up out of his chair and to the door. Except, the unlock button wasn’t working. He slammed his palm against the reader again and again.

“Work you stupid thing,” he muttered. It was no use. He couldn’t unlock the door.

“Did I stutter?” Allura asked sweetly. Lance froze in fear. Slowly, he turned around and saw she was holding up a small box with a couple switches on it.

“This is a manual override to the lock system. Nobody is going to be avoiding this any longer. Like I said, we are a team, and we are all getting through this. Together.” Allura raised her eyebrows. “Now sit back down, Lance, and tell us what you’re feeling.”

Hunk leaned back in his chair and groaned. “I regret making that device, I regret so many things…” Lance took a walk of shame back to his chair. Okay, well, fleeing didn’t work. Maybe his old friend flattery would.

“Hey, Allura, did you do something new with your hair…?” Okay, yeah, no, abort, that was a bad idea. All that got him was the Death Glare. And he’d been so good about avoiding those lately.

The silence in the room was getting deafening. It was fine, he could do this, he could take the pressure. Everybody staring at him had to be way less mortifying than admitting to Keith that he liked him AA-group style, right? Speaking of which, he didn’t even think he’d seen the brooding asshole blink. It wasn’t fair.

Shiro cleared his throat. Thank you, Shiro. He always had his back. “Allura, I know I said I’d let you handle it, but this is getting to be a bit much.” Allura whipped around to face him.

“Shiro, please. You are a wonderful leader and I respect you, but you’ve done enough helping. They need to accept some responsibility for once.” And, shit, there went any shot of Shiro helping him out of this. Space Mom had laid down the law. He was screwed.

“Uh well...I don’t know if this has anything to do with… Well I mean, it probably does, but honestly this isn’t such a big deal, right?” Lance squirmed and rubbed the back of his neck. Why did he open his mouth again? Oh right, he was doomed and cracking under Altean interrogation techniques. “Look I don’t think what I have to say is important so can I ju--”

“No.”

“Damn okay, jeez, it was worth a shot...” He fidgeted some more in his seat, playing with his hands on the table. “Look I don’t have anyth--”

“ _Lance._ ”

Lance put his head down on the table and hid his face in his arms. There was no way out of this; there was no way out and he was going to die from embarrassment. Whatever, he’d just tell the table. You’re not telling Keith, you’re just telling your old friend Mr. Table. Yeah.

“So I… okay, I don’t hate Keith. I probably never did. I just really like him, really really _really_ like him and it just makes me angry because he’s so unfairly attractive and above-it-all and I _know_ I don’t have a chance, I just.” He cut himself off before the word vomit got too embarrassing, what the fuck was he doing. This was bad, coming to this stupid meeting was a bad idea, and he just wanted Allura to let him out already.

The group seemed to be a little relieved at least. One down, one to go, right? Allura patted his shoulder awkwardly.

“Thank you, Lance. Now, don’t you feel a little better already?” No. His heart was beating out of his chest and he might as well change his name to Hunk because he was about to hurl. Oh, and he wanted to cry in shame a little bit too. This was a great plan, Allura.

And just when he thought things couldn’t get any worse, Keith actually decided to speak.

“Wait, what? What the hell?” The sound of a chair scraping against the floor. “I thought you and Shiro were…” he trailed off. Lance dared a peek out from behind his arms. Keith was standing with this absolutely bewildered look on his face. What right did he have to be making that cute expression when Lance was at one of his lowest points, come on.

Shiro’s eyebrows were furrowed. “You thought me and Lance were what?” He looked just as confused as Keith, and as confused as Lance was starting to feel except… An expression of realization began to slowly dawn over Shiro’s face.

“Oh my god,” Pidge whispered. “This is something straight out of a romcom, oh my god. I need to make some coffee, I can’t deal with this.” They hopped out of their chair and started fiddling with buttons on the goo machine. Apparently they could make coffee goo now? Whatever.

“Aren’t you and Lance dating?” Keith blurted out. What. The. Fuck?

“What the fuck?!” Lance screeched, sitting straight up. Keith blinked owlishly at him.

“Are you… saying you’re not?” Keith asked with some kind of trepidation, seriously, what the fuck, dude. Lance all but forgot his mortification because this, this was absolutely insane.

“ _No_ , dude. Number one, eew. What the fuck, Shiro’s like my… dad.” Well, shit, now he was owning up to that one too in front of everyone. Goddammit. “Number two, _eew_. Why would you ever think that?” Keith frowned.

“Because it was… logical? I mean, you guys spend so much time together and all Shiro does is talk about you, so…” Keith trailed off again, blushing furiously. Well good, it was about time both of them were embarrassed. “And anyway, why are you acting all grossed out? It’s _Shiro_ , he’s so hot--” Keith slapped a hand over his mouth to shut himself up. Look who else has word vomit, holy shit.

Pidge had walked back over to the table with a steaming cup of what was probably coffee goo. They took a large slurp of it before saying, “Oh my god, Keith has a crush on Shiro? This just gets stupider and stupider.” Hunk perked up at the smaller paladin’s return.

“Hey, give me some of that,” he said as they sat back down. They glared at him. “I can only handle so much crap, too,” he whined. They rolled their eyes and handed over the cup.

Lance’s head was still reeling because what, Keith liked _Shiro_? He wasn’t denying it or anything, he was just standing there, with his eyes all bugged-out and panicking. This was just… He slumped back over in his chair, the little bit of hope he thought had died a long time ago crumbling in his chest.

Shiro cleared his throat awkwardly once again. “I, uh, I’m flattered, Keith? But I have to uh, I see both of you more as little brothers than anything.”

“Oh,” Keith whispered. He was bright red now, and shaking.

Lance was eerily quiet. Everyone was dead silent, looking from Keith to Lance. The tension in the air weighed heavily on their shoulders like bricks.

“Well, uh, great talk guys! That certainly was enlightening. I learned some things I never wanted to know, wow.” Hunk was the first to break the silence. He got up and he whispered to Allura, ”Please let me leave.”

Allura sighed and stood up as well. It was apparent that her plan had blown up spectacularly in her face. She clearly still wanted to get this settled tonight, but she had to acknowledge that probably wasn’t going to be a realistic possibility. She pulled out the manual override and flipped the switch to unlock the door. Pidge rushed out the fastest with Hunk on their heels. Shiro and Allura filed out slowly after that.

“I told you this was a bad idea,” he murmured into her ear.

Then Lance was alone with Keith, who was still just standing there. Great.

********

Keith had made a lot of mistakes in his life. He knew, he fucking _knew_ he was terrible with people, but time and again his own incompetence managed to catch him by surprise. This moment took the cake, though.

Shiro and Lance were friends, of course they were. He’d never seen them actually commit any PDA, and in hindsight if Lance actually managed to get together with someone he probably would have never stopped bragging about it. That probably should have tipped him off. Of course. He was an idiot. Shiro saw Lance as a little brother. Shiro saw _him_ as a little brother. He was so damn _stupid_. He had never had the older man in reach at all.

Burning with shame, he sagged back down in the chair he was sitting in just as Lance was starting to straighten up again. They made eye contact, and Keith felt his chest seize up. Shit. Lance looked… well, Lance probably looked as bad as he did. Heartbroken. His hatred for the boy sort of… fizzled out watching him like this. He swallowed thickly. Lance abruptly looked away. Were those… tears in his eyes? Oh no.

“So, haha, what a talk, am I right? Yeah uh, I have… things to do. Space things. I’m super busy, so. I’m gonna go then.” He stood up shakily and made his way toward the door. Keith’s heart was hammering in his throat.

“Wait,” he found himself calling out. Lance stiffened and froze in place.

“ _What_ ,” he ground out without turning around. Keith flinched. Well, shit, now that he’d gotten this far, he didn’t know what he was supposed to say. He was still wrapping his head around the idea that Lance liked him. Like that. He liked him. It was bizarre and uncomfortable, that the boy he had passionately hated until very recently could care for him so deeply. That anyone could, really. It wasn’t something he had honestly expected to ever experience.

He wet his lips and tried to gather up his words. “Look, I’m… I’m sorry. I’m a fuckup, I know, and I got too aggressive and hurt your feelings, and I want to make it up to you somehow? Even though this kinda came out of left field and I… yeah,” he finished lamely. Lance snorted. Uh. He hadn’t meant his apology to be funny, but he’d take it, he guessed?

“Gee, I wonder whose fault _that_ could be?” he spat. Uh oh. Lance whirled around and started storming towards him, his eyes definitely overflowing with tears now. “Maybe this all came out of left field because I was fucking terrified of what you would do since you’re such an _asshole_!” Keith took a step backwards, his eyes widening. He’d seen Lance upset before, sure, but always over stupid little things, like getting rejected by whatever alien out of his league he’d just tried flirting with. This was… This was kind of terrifying, honestly.

“I, shit, I can’t believe you! Seriously, ‘left field’?! You’re sorry you ‘hurt my feelings’?! What kind of piss-poor apology is that?! Even though I was never going to tell you in a million years, everybody else on this ship knew! It was obvious, I’ve always been so _fucking_ transparent and _small_ when it comes to you, ya know that? Even before finding the goddamn lions and, and being paladins and all of this! I worked my ass off to even get close to your level, your beautiful brilliant fucking level above all of us, and you couldn’t even be bothered to remember what class I was in. Right, because why should you? I’ve never been--” sniff “--anything next to you!” 

Lance suddenly shoved him against the wall. Keith felt his back press against some buttons and probably activate something, but that was the least of his worries right now. Lance was rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand furiously, but the tears kept pouring out. Keith was numb, overpowered by this onslaught.

“And you still don’t get it, do you? I’m still never going to be able to really reach you, am I? You’re always just gonna be so fucking _perfect_ that us mere mortals are never going to be able to reach you, huh?”

“I never said--”

“No, ha, no you never fucking _said_ you were perfect, you don’t need to, you ass. You just are, floating like a feather, never saying a word. So _fucking_ special. It’s like, fuck, you don’t even realize _that_ , either. You’ve got this, just, holy fucking aura of innate greatness that blinds everybody else, but you, you think people are turning away ‘cause it’s a shadow or some shit. No, no, I can’t bear to look at you, breathe the same air as you, because you’re all _bright_ , like, a, a shooting star, or something.” Keith felt his mouth fall open. A… star? A shooting star, what? He thought he was something that beautiful? At least, that’s pretty sure that’s what he said. It was getting kind of hard to tell through the sobs.

“See? Look at you. You’re...eres mi estrella, la luz que me guía. Gracias a ti, quiero ser mejor de lo que soy. Porque quiero que me quiera como te quiero a ti. Te amo, Keith, te amo tanto que no puedo soportarlo. No puedo mantenerme junto a tu alrededor.” Okay, Keith was officially scared out of his mind. Lance might actually be broken. He never spoke Spanish in front of anyone except maybe Hunk, he wasn’t sure. Keith had no idea what he was saying, but… it was probably in the same vein as the stuff earlier, so. He was pretty sure he remembered “estrella” was “star” from Dora, so, yeah, that sounded right.

“Lo odio, lo odio, lo odio. Pero me odio más por caer para ti en el primer lugar. Soy tan estúpido, no se puede coger las estrellas.” He was whispering the words on broken sobs at this point. Keith swallowed. He had really fucked this up.

A little voice in the back of his mind piped up that you know, maybe it would’ve been better if it was Shiro Lance was in love with. At least, he’d know what to do. He had a lot of empathy and, hell, he probably would’ve never let him get hurt like this in the first place.

Keith hated that little voice. That little voice could go fuck itself.

Lance began to sway on his feet, seeming to have run out of steam. He seemed to have run out of broken words and even tears. Keith didn’t know what to do. What was he supposed to do? Was Lance going to faint or something? He reacted in a split second and did the only thing he could think to do-- he wrapped him in a giant bear-hug, supporting his weight.

Lance went completely stiff for a second, and Keith began to freak out. Shit, shit, he did the wrong thing. But in the next moment, Lance was melting into the embrace that was too much and not enough. No, he was clinging to him, and sobbing again anew. It was quiet this time, though. Just deep, wracking sobs and no noise. Keith really didn’t know what he was doing, but he figured rubbing his back was comforting and harmless enough. Yeah, that seemed to be working.

He didn’t know how long they stood there for, Lance silently crying and Keith rubbing his back. He knew he had to gently shift them backward at one point so he could lean against the wall because Lance was pretty heavy. At some point Lance buried his face in the crook of his neck, and at some point Keith’s hand traveled up his back to rest on the other boy’s head, lightly playing with his hair, completely subconsciously. And at some point, Lance had calmed down enough and was exhausted enough that he fell asleep in Keith’s arms.

This could also be filed under “things Keith has no idea how to deal with”. He supposed he’d just have to carry him to his room, which was going to be easier said than done. He sighed, hoisting Lance’s arm over his shoulder and putting his own arm around the boy’s waist. He was even heavier now that he was completely dead weight, shit. Keith wasn’t complaining, though. It was the least he could do for him.

It was a little bit of a struggle to open the door, but he did it. Slowly, the two made their way down the hallway, Lance breathing softly in Keith’s ear.

**********

When Shiro got back to his room, all he really wanted to do was sleep. Yeah, he’d gotten a couple hours in right after the failed mission, but the whole “feelings jam” mess Allura had concocted made that seem like centuries ago. He was exhausted. He knew that confession from Keith had been a long time coming, but that didn’t make it any easier to deal with. He was going to have to talk to the kid later, properly let him down. But in the morning, god.

He sat down on the edge of his bed and stretched before starting to take off his boots and get undressed. He was just pulling the left one off when… he heard the intercom crackle to life?

“--still don’t get it, do you? ...still never gonna… really reach you, am I? --so fucking _perfect_ that us mere mortals are never going to--” Lance’s voice was coming in bits and pieces over the comms. It was faint, and Shiro only seemed to be really hearing the bits Lance was yelling. Great. They must have accidentally turned on the intercoms and now the entire team was going to be privy to their argument. Shiro groaned. He had just wanted to get to sleep. That was all he asked.

Shiro heard Keith mumble something, but it was quickly cut off by Lance’s yelling again. Although… Shiro stood up, his hands on his hips, listening closer. He couldn’t be sure, but it sounded like Lance was crying?

“No, ha, no you never fucking _said_ you were perfect, you don’t need to, you ass. You just.... So _fucking_ special. It’s like, fuck, you don’t even realize _that_ , either. You’ve got this, just, holy fucking...blinds everybody else...No, no, I can’t bear to look at you, breathe the same air as you, because you’re all _bright_ , like, a, a shooting star, or something.” The last sentence rung out crystal clear; Lance must have moved closer to the mic. But, oh no, this was… shit. Shit, Lance was really crying hard. Guilt began to worm its way through Shiro. Keith must have done something so Lance finally snapped, because that poor boy was baring his soul and everyone could hear it, and, shit. This was his fault. He should have done a better job of helping him, or not gotten involved at all, or, something.

Very faintly, he could now hear Lance whisper-crying in… Spanish? _Shit_. Lance must really be having a breakdown. He never used his native tongue casually, said it made him too homesick. Shiro began pacing and pacing and then paced right out of the room. He had to get out of there, he had to do something. He couldn’t listen to those quiet, broken words anymore knowing he could’ve done better somehow to prevent this. He knew how Lance looked up to him, he, he was failing him.

Eventually, he found his feet taking him up one of the hallways leading to the dining area. He knew he shouldn’t be doing this. Allura was right about one thing. Lance and Keith did need to take responsibility for themselves. They probably needed to have this screaming match, although it sounded like Lance was the one doing all the screaming for once. But Shiro was worried and guilty and dammit, he couldn’t _not_ try to help. It wasn’t in his nature.

As he rounded the corner, he ended up almost barreling straight into Keith and Lance. Keith looked grim and drained as he carried Lance, who also appeared to be sleeping. Okay, that was really strange, but he wasn’t going to question it. When Keith noticed it was him, he seemed to startle slightly and then look down at the ground, embarrassed.

“Could you… help? He’s really heavy,” the dark-haired boy said through gritted teeth. Shiro blinked and nodded, shaking himself back into reality.

“Of course,” he replied. He came to try to help set things right, after all. Shiro went to Lance’s other side and grabbed his other arm and put it around his shoulders. Together, they carried the sleeping blue paladin back to his room.

*********

Keith supposed he should be grateful Shiro showed up to help, but he also could barely look at the man right now. Once they got Lance settled in bed, he was itching to leave, but… as much as he was jumping in his skin around Shiro right now, he felt like he owed it to Lance to stay until he woke up. He… he didn’t know. He needed to make sure he was okay, or something. That was probably etiquette after you caused someone’s breakdown, right?

So that was how he ended up here, sitting on the floor outside of Lance’s room hugging his knees, Shiro a couple feet away next to him. The silence was super tense, but that was infinitely better than, you know. Shiro actually speaking to him right now.

Shiro, unfortunately, didn’t get the memo, because he eventually cleared his throat.

“So… how are you feeling?” he tentatively asked. That actually got Keith to look up and stare at him in disbelief. Really, Shiro? How the fuck do you think?

Shiro looked away and began nervously chuckling. “Yeah, that’s fair, I guess,” he said, scratching his neck. “So… I realize I kind of… what I said back there didn’t quite come out right, but. I just want to formally… decline, I guess. I love you like a kid brother, Keith. And that’s not going to change.”

“Yeah, I uh… yeah.” Keith crumpled into himself a little further. He got it the first time; Shiro really didn’t need to twist the knife any further. He seemed to still be fumbling for words to say, though. His hand darted out like he was considering putting it on Keith’s shoulder, but then quickly retracted. Keith was thankful for that. A good old fatherly pat from Shiro was the last thing he needed right now, seriously.

“You… know this isn’t something that could ever happen between us, right? I’m eight years older than you. That’s just… no.” Keith had shrunk so much at this point he was practically in a ball on the floor.

“Age is just a number,” he mumbled. The words came out robotically, not like he had any intention of using them as a defense. 

“Keith, we both know that’s bullshit.” Yeah. A heavy resignation was bearing down on the boy. He knew, deep down, that Shiro was right. Logically, a functional relationship between them would be nearly impossible. He just wished crushes were a little more logical, because that fact sure didn’t make _any_ of this easier.

Silence bore down upon them once again. Keith could feel Shiro staring at him. He didn’t know for what. He made his point. It got through. What else could he want? Finally, Shiro sighed and got up.

“I’ll give you a few minutes alone with Lance, but then I’m sending Hunk in to watch him.” Keith unwound himself from his ball a little bit and looked up, startled.

“Wait, what? Why?”

Shiro looked away. “You… really did a number on him, Keith. I think the best thing you can do for him right now is give him space.” 

Keith’s jaw clenched and he gave him a tight nod. He knew he had fucked up his relationship with Lance, maybe permanently. He deserved that. Shiro seemed to breathe a sigh of relief, and before he could stop himself, reached down and gave Keith a pat on the back. He shrunk away from the touch. Seemingly embarrassed, Shiro quickly turned around and walked away. Keith shuddered out his own breath of relief and slowly worked his way to his feet. He knew Shiro probably wasn’t far away, most likely waiting just around the corner, but he really needed this moment to just… compose himself before walking into Lance’s room.

When he did, he took another deep breath before unlocking the door and poking his head inside. Lance was still sound asleep, luckily. He still looked like a wreck, but he at least seemed to be somewhat relaxed in sleep. His face was slack, almost peaceful-looking. Keith felt his heart clench in guilt, or sympathy, or maybe something else, he didn’t know. The only emotion he’d ever been good at placing was anger. A tidal wave of self-hatred suddenly washed over him. He really was a piece of shit. A cold and thoughtless piece of shit.

“I really am sorry, Lance.” The words were flying out of his mouth before he even realized he was thinking them. “I’m…. I’m so fucking sorry it had to be me instead of Shiro, or Allura, or some nameless alien, I don’t know. I’m going to…” Shit. His voice was cracking. Why was he still talking? “I’m going to make it up to you. Somehow. Even if that’s just giving you space, or whatever. I’m probably never going to deserve the… feelings you have for me. I, fuck, I know I won’t. But. I don’t know. Maybe I’ll deserve you as a friend one day.” He turned away and stepped out of the doorway, his eyes burning in shame. He was pathetic. He should really just stay away from Lance. 

Keith quickly walked away without looking back, hurrying to his own room as fast as he could. He brushed past Hunk in the hallway without comment. He didn’t know if Hunk tried to say anything to him. Honestly, he didn’t really care. He was moving without really seeing or hearing anything. When he got to his room, he slammed the lock button behind him and then just started unloading all the ugliness inside him. Screaming, kicking, punching dents in the walls. It was easier than thinking about anything anymore. He hadn’t had an outburst like this in a while, and usually he tried to be a little discreet about it, but he really didn’t give a shit right now if anyone heard. They’d know to keep well enough alone. Eventually, his rage and adrenaline fizzled out and there really wasn’t anything left in his room to wreck, so he fell onto his bed still fully clothed. He was asleep seconds after his head hit the pillow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translation: "You're my star, the light that guides me. Because of you, I want to be a better me. Because I want to love me like I love you. I love you, Keith, I love you so much I can't stand it. I can't keep myself together around you." and "I hate it, I hate it, I hate it. But I hate myself more for falling for you in the first place. I'm so stupid, you can't catch stars." Again, a huge thank you and round of applause for Diane. She's the best.
> 
> This is the first Big chapter, and I'm so excited to finally be posting it (sorry for the delay, btw.) Thank you so much for the kudos and comments, and please, please, leave a comment on this chapter if you can, because I'm really curious to see what you guys think of this one! If you ever want to talk about my headcanons or this fic or anything Voltron privately, feel free to message me or send me an ask on Tumblr!


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The fallout.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warning for a panic attack, check end notes for details.

Lance woke up to a dimly lit room and a pounding headache. He groaned and rolled over to his side. Nope, he was going right back to sleep. He was not feeling it today.

“Hey, Sleeping Beauty. Welcome to the world of the living.” Except apparently, the universe had other plans for him. He opened his eyes a crack and saw a very tired-looking Hunk smiling and sitting in a chair across from him.

“Hunk. I love you, man, but why are you in my room when I’m trying to sleep. Why.” Instead of answering, the bigger boy just held out ibuprofen and a glass of water. Lance scowled, but ow, even tensing up his face was painful, ow, okay, he was taking the ibuprofen and waking up, geez.

He leaned back onto his pillows and closed his eyes, waiting for the medicine to start taking effect. Hunk still hadn’t said anything else, which was weird. It was also pretty weird that he was just waiting there knowing he’d need some painkillers once he woke up, because he didn’t get migraines often. He usually only got them from eating way too much sugar, or after he’d been crying for a really long time. Emotional stress was a bitch. But that’s why he didn’t…

Wait.

As the pounding in his head started to mostly recede, memories of the previous night began slamming into his brain instead. Keith. Keith, Keith, beautiful infuriating _idiot_ Keith. Who he screamed at and pushed and cried on and who just stood there and took it. Oh. Fuck. A wave of panic overtook him and he gripped at his sheets.

“Breathe. Lance. Lance? You gotta breathe, buddy." Hunk's voice, calm, always so calm, cut through the blood roaring in his ears. He was desperately gulping air, but he couldn't, couldn't seem to get any. Bad, bad, bad, this was so bad. He fucked everything up, he, he told Keith _everything._

Hunk reached out and gently unwound his hand from the ball of sheets he was clutching. He scooted his chair in closer and placed Lance's hand on his stomach.

"Breathe with me. Come on." His hand moved up, "In," and down, "and out." Okay, he just needed to focus on his hand. Up and down. Up and down. In and out. Yeah. Eventually his breathing was able to slow to a relatively normal rate, although it was still pretty shallow.

When he was sure Lance was all there, Hunk let go of his hand and leaned back in his chair, taking a long exhale. He did look really worn out. Lance bit his lip and swallowed his guilt down. If he got all self-deprecating right now, that would just worry his best friend even more. He pushed it down. Hunk handed him the glass of water he hadn't finished earlier. Lance gratefully took it. Fuck, did he love Hunk. He swore he knew him better than he knew himself. Although... the larger boy was crazy perceptive, but something didn't quite add up.

"You never answered my question. Why are you," he gestured widely with his hand at the room around them, "Here? Doing all... this?" Hunk's eyes widened and he shifted slightly in his seat.

"Taking care of your sorry butt like always," he said, but Lance, who was definitely not the most perceptive of people, still knew his best friend pretty damn well. And he knew there definitely was something he wasn't telling him now. He raised an eyebrow and crossed his arms.

"You know what I mean. How'd ya know I needed ibuprofen? I mean, I suppose you could've guessed, but..." But Hunk had known, and the other boy knew he knew that. His shoulders hunched as he realized he was caught.

"Well um... don't freak out again, alright? During your... confrontation with Keith, you guys um, somehow turned on the intercoms? So we all kind of... heard. You're quite the poet if that. Helps any," Hunk slowly stumbled through the bad news. Lance's throat tightened. Oddly enough, he wasn't about to panic again. He felt almost disengaged from the news. It sounded like something that only happened on a bad sitcom, how could he not? It was impossible even for him to make that big of an ass of himself in real life. Or at least, it should be. He was... wow.

"Can you just... leave me alone for a bit?" he asked tightly around the lump in his throat. Even Hunk was too much for him right now. He couldn't stand the look of absolute pity on the other boy's face.

Hunk bit his lip. "Are you sure, man?" Lance nodded. Leave, leave, please leave. The larger boy sighed and stood up and reluctantly made his way to the door. He paused in the doorway and said, "I'll be in the gadget room if you need me."

Lance laughed weakly at that. "Dude, just go to bed. I'll be fine." That was a lie, but someone had to make sure Hunk took care of himself, too.

"I know Pidge will be up, though. Think of it as me making sure they don't accidentally blow up the castle while they're half-asleep, not staying up for you," Hunk tried to reason.

"Go to bed," Lance said, trying to channel his inner Shiro and appear stern but reassuring. Since Hunk was starting to crack up, he probably just looked constipated, but whatever. "Stop being such a _mom_ , geez. Pidge'll be fine, too." Probably.

Hunk finally gave in. "Fine, fine. But if we all die in a fireball, I'm totally haunting you." He closed the door and left before Lance could bite back any kind of retort. And then he was alone with his thoughts, just like he wanted to be.

He felt nauseous. Yeah, there was no way he could face the rest of the team any time soon. Those words from last night kept echoing in his ears. They were too personal for him to want Keith to hear, let alone everybody else. He could picture the pity on their faces just like Hunk's, and he just felt more and more sick. Well, there probably wouldn't be pity on Keith's face at least. He couldn't imagine the red paladin ever having sympathy for him. There'd probably just be an expression of disgust that mirrored his own with himself, honestly. And fuck, that just started to get him pissed again, because wow, Keith still had been such a _douchenozzle_.

The more his thoughts kept circling around his head, though, the more Lance got fixated on seeing Keith. It was crazy, he knew. It went against all of his natural impulses to hide in his room forever, and it was probably a bad idea from the standpoint that he might deck Keith as soon as he saw him. But... he owed him an apology. Yeah, he meant everything he said, and that was kind of a scary thought in of itself. There was a reason he pushed all that shit down, alright? He was still a hot mess who cried all over his crush after berating him for five minutes. Nobody deserved that. As much as Lance didn't want to face him, he knew he had to suck it up and start doing the right thing. If Allura's terrible, terrible plan proved anything, it was that Voltron depended on it. It was damage control time, to make sure Keith wouldn't totally hate him forever. For the good of the team. Yeah.

Getting out of bed was the next step. He could totally handle that. Well, no time like the present. He swung his feet over the side of the bed and onto the floor, sitting up in one fluid motion. Moving his head that quickly sent a wave of pain and dizziness through him. He almost laid straight back down, but he gritted his teeth and tried to power through it. He had to do this now, before he lost his nerve.

Slowly, Lance made his way to his feet and eventually to the door. Everything was a little too bright and as he hit the unlock pad, yep, definitely too loud, but at least it had all stopped spinning. His migraine had faded to a dull throb and that was as probably as good it was gonna get today. He started walking toward one of the common rooms, hoping luck would be in his favor and he’d just find Keith there. He didn’t think he could handle being near the training rooms today; he’d probably just stupidly challenge Keith to a fight or something and then get his ass whooped with still having a bit of a migraine and all. Unfortunately, all of the common rooms seemed to be deserted. Well, he was pretty sure he saw Coran cleaning in one of them, but he got out of there real fast before the Altean man could see him, just in case he tried to put him to work.

He had all but given up and was walking toward the dining hall to get something to eat when he suddenly saw Keith, just sort of standing there in an adjacent hallway. The other boy was staring at him, his fists clenched at his sides and his expression carefully guarded. Lance wasn’t really sure what to make of that, so he proceeded with caution.

“Hey,” he ventured.

“Hey,” Keith said back tightly. Lance bit his lip. Okay, he could do this. He just had to get the words out, smooth everything over, and everything would be fine. Everything would be fine he just had to speak--

“I’ve gotta go.” Keith quickly looked away and started turning around. Shit.

“No, wait!” Lance called out. On an impulse, he ran up to the other boy and grabbed his shoulder. “I’ve gotta--”

Keith recoiled from his touch. Lance jerkily pulled his hand back, trying to not let the hurt show on his face. Yeah, he knew this was going to happen, but. Reality always somehow managed to kick his ass anyway. Idiot.

“Lance, just… Just don’t, alright? I’m… I’m just, I’m leaving. Bye.” If Lance didn’t know any better, he’d say Keith was shaking slightly as he speed-walked away from him. But Keith Kogane being anything less than put together? As if.

He was probably headed for the dining hall, too, and Lance wasn’t about to follow him. Contrary to popular belief, he could take a hint. His stomach could wait, just like his apology. It would have to. He ran a hand through his hair and headed back to his room.

Lance was abruptly assaulted by the memory of Keith petting his hair as he cried into his arms.

It was going to be a long day.

*********

Keith slammed his way into the dining hall and collapsed onto the first chair he saw, groaning. He hit his head against the table again and again. Well, that was a disaster. That conversation (although conversation was too strong a word) with Lance couldn’t have gone any worse. He was this close to apologizing again before he remembered what happened the last time he tried to give him a half-assed platitude, and he just. Had to get away. He had seen Lance’s face. He was just going to keep hurting him by talking to him, being around him, why couldn’t he get that?

Someone cleared their throat. Keith looked up to see Pidge sitting at the table across from him. They were sipping what was probably coffee and eyeing him warily. Keith immediately straightened, feeling sheepish for some reason. They just had that kind of power. He didn’t understand what made Pidge tick for the most part (although he didn’t understand what made anyone tick), but on some sort of base level he felt like they sort of recognized each other as kindred spirits (which was very rare and very weird). There was some kind of mutual respect there, and he considered them friends.

“Oh, don’t mind me. Feel free to continue your little emo fit.” He took all of that back. Pidge was an annoying little gremlin and they would never understand each other. He gave them a dark look.

“Save it, Pidge,” he grumbled. They smirked and took another swig of their coffee. A not entirely uncomfortable silence descended for a couple minutes while the two simply watched each other. Slowly, Keith felt himself starting to descend back into his spiral of self-hatred.

“Well, you sure fucked up.” Pidge broke the silence before he could get any further, setting their mug down with a clunk. Keith looked at them blankly.

“Thanks,” he said dryly.

“No problem,” they replied, their smirk growing wider. There was a long silence again, which was starting to make Keith feel antsy. What did they want? He couldn’t even figure out if they actually wanted anything, or if they were just messing with him. Like playing a game of chicken, except with staring. His foot started to tap. Finally, he couldn’t take it anymore.

“I fucked up,” he blurted out. Pidge raised an eyebrow and snorted.

“No shit.” 

Keith slammed his head back on the table again. “Lance likes me.” This was torture. He needed to shut up.

“Really? I never would’ve figured that one out.” Keith felt his eye twitch, but he knew he was in the wrong here, and for some reason, he kept going.

“I was an asshole.” He sat back up, resuming eye contact. What was he trying to prove?

“Understatement of the year.” Their glasses glinted.

“...I’m an idiot,” he mumbled.

“Nice work, Captain Obvious,” they said, rolling their eyes. He really needed to stop talking. So he did, and the two just sat there again in silence, the other occasionally slurping at their coffee. He swore Pidge was just fucking with him at this point. Problem was, they were also the only one he really trusted to know Lance enough to know what to do and to give it to him totally straight. So he kept opening his mouth.

“Well?” he asked.

“Well what?” they responded frostily, eyes narrowed. Keith’s mouth went dry and his mind went blank. Of course they were going to make this as difficult as possible for him. After a long moment of the tiny paladin staring at him suspiciously and him giving them a pleading look back, they finally spoke again.

“You… seriously aren’t looking to _me_ for advice, right?” they asked, sounding incredulous. He sighed and dragged a hand across his face.

“...Maybe?” He was desperate, alright? He was going to do his best to leave Lance alone, but in case they did have to interact… he didn’t want a repeat of the hallway today, to put it mildly.

“Unbelievable,” Pidge deadpanned. They took another swig of coffee, seemingly for strength. “I haven’t slept in fifty…. Fifty-something… I don’t know, I stopped keeping track, but it’s been longer than two days. Everything’s kinda… sparkly. Not that it’s your fault. Well, okay, what happened to the Eredos hasn’t been helping and that kinda was your fault, but. The point is, you managed to ask the one person who might be in a worse place than you right now for help. Congrats, that’s, that’s gotta get you a medal or something.” Keith started to feel extremely guilty. He knew Pidge had their own problems too, and he suspected the insomnia was a symptom, not the root of them. He just got so wrapped up in his own shit he forgot. Selfish, selfish idiot.

“Oh my god, stop it with the pity party,” they groaned. Keith looked up and the other was staring hard at him, looking pretty annoyed.

“What?”

“You know exactly what I’m talking about. Don’t play dumb, idiot. All I meant is I’m the least qualified to deal with all your,” they gestured vaguely at him, “Shit. My problems are my problems. I don’t need you blaming yourself for them, too. Cut yourself a little slack, dude.” Pidge, while typically a very blunt, honest person, even seemed surprised at how much they’d just spoken from the heart.

“Okay.” Keith allowed a ghost of a smile to make its way to his face. That seemed to hearten Pidge enough for them to launch into another sarcastic rant.

“I mean, come on, do I look like a life coach? Seriously. How would I have any frame of reference? Am I drowning in metaphorical dick here? No?” Keith snorted. “Even if I _was_ functioning like a human being, I still understand machines better than people, hello.” It was Keith’s turn to roll his eyes.

“Thanks, Sergeant Sarcasm.” Their eyes lit up at his retort, and they grinned wolfishly back at him.

“Pleasure to be of service, cap’n,” they said and knocked back the last of their coffee. Keith found himself smiling, really smiling, just a little bit too. His problems with Lance were still just as enormous and crushing as before. But exchanging sarcastic banter with Pidge was making him feel the tiniest bit human, and for that he was grateful. Yeah, it was definitely a good idea to talk to them after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warning: Lance has a small panic attack when he remembers that he told Keith everything, and Hunk helps him calm down. Starts with phrase "A wave of panic" and ends with "it was still pretty shallow." if you need to skip.
> 
> Also: as a disclaimer, don't ever touch somebody having a panic attack unless they've specifically told you to beforehand. This is definitely something Hunk and Lance have had established between them for a long time and I just... wanted to put that disclaimer out there.
> 
> All that being said, thank you all so much for all the responses on the last chapter, holy shit. You guys make my day every time I get a notification for a comment.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Houston, we have an even bigger problem. (part 1)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is such a behemoth I ended up splitting it up in two (I won't keep you guys in suspense for a whole week, though.)
> 
> Major chapter warning for Shiro's PTSD, details in the end notes.

Neborion was definitely not a sight for sore eyes. Shiro was already getting uneasy feelings at the sight of the planet in his viewport. Allura had insisted that they needed to complete the mission, though. It wasn’t likely they’d get the opportunity to take control of a Galra base without an enormous battle any time in the near future, so they all had to suck it up and finish what they started. Shiro knew rescuing the Eredos babies was also an unspoken objective of the mission. Allura could pretend this was solely for the good of the galaxy as much as she liked, but he knew her better than that. He just hoped it wasn’t too late.

The team entered the planet’s atmosphere and it wasn’t long before everything was obscured by fog. They all panned out along the surface, searching for the abandoned base, just like the first time. No Eredos appeared from the mist to attack them this time, though. There were no signs of life, no signs of _anything_ anywhere. Just fog, fog, and more fog. It was more than a little unsettling.

“Why the hell is this place so impossible to find,” Pidge grumbled under their breath.

“Just be patient, everyone,” Shiro said. Scanning the area wasn’t doing much good. Maybe the base was underground? With all these rock formations, he imagined it’d be pretty hard to drill underneath them. Maybe there were underground caves, kind of like with the Balmera? No, Allura would’ve briefed them on something like that.

After several minutes of everyone fruitlessly searching, Shiro attempted to contact Allura to give her a status update. The signal was still jammed, however, no matter how much he adjusted the frequency. He gritted his teeth. He was just being paranoid, and he needed to quit it. They would find the base sooner rather than later; it wasn’t exactly a big planet. They’d get in and out with the intel and everything would be fine.

“Bingo!” a voice shouted over the comms, shattering the silence and startling Shiro. Lance’s grinning face popped up on his viewport. “I found it! Please, please, hold your applause. I know I’m your hero, no need to thank me.” Shiro sighed. At least Lance was back to being Lance, even if his bravado seemed a little forced. His line just sort of… hung there, though, since Keith wasn’t spitting back any kind of retort. Things had been pretty forced between them lately. He wasn’t even sure how much they’d interacted at all since the “feelings jam” a week or so ago. An odd, awkward silence descended for a few beats until Shiro cleared his throat.

“Lance, your location.” The boy jumped and began fumbling with his controls.

“Oh, uh, yeah. Of course, haha.” He uploaded his coordinates to everyone’s viewports and Shiro immediately directed his lion toward them.

The base appeared to be built tucked away into the side of one of the faces of a cliff. It was a gray, windowless structure that was camouflaged well in the rock formations. The fog also seemed to be even denser here than the section of the planet Shiro was just in. He had to admit it was extremely well placed, and it was dumb luck any of them had managed to stumble on it at all. As he gently landed his lion on the roof of the base, he got curious and tried to scan for the base again. Even though he was right on top of it, Black’s search results still turned up negative. Shiro frowned. He wanted to get inside that base as soon as possible and figure out what the hell was going on.

“So what’s the plan?” Hunk asked, touching down next to Shiro. “This place is starting to give me the creeps.”

Shiro cleared his throat. “Keith, Pidge, and I will break into the base. Keith and I will guard Pidge while they hack the systems and get us our intel. You and Lance will stay as lookouts, and backup on standby if necessary.

“Aw, man, why do I always get lookout? It’s not fair,” Lance whined at the same time as Keith said, “Sounds good to me.” Another awkward silence descended and Shiro pinched the bridge of his nose. He intentionally was keeping them separate on this mission, but they weren’t even going to try to make this easy, were they?

“Lance, you’re a sniper, you know why,” Hunk muttered, saving Shiro from having to say anything.

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Geez, can nobody take a joke?” Lance grumbled, sounding somewhat sheepish.

"Let's just get this over with, please," Pidge said. They and Keith parked their lions and hopped out of them, climbing to where they assumed the front of the base was. Shiro quickly followed suit. Then, the Yellow and Blue Lions got into positions on the cliff where they wouldn't easily be detected.

The trio examined the wall of the base carefully. It was made of the same slightly glossy dark gray metal like pretty much everything Galra seemed to be, and perfectly smooth. There didn't seem to be any kind of door or opening mechanism anywhere. Shiro rapped his knuckles along it, listening for any hollow noises, but to no avail. He shoved his shoulder against it experimentally, but that obviously didn't work either. He was rather short on ideas.

"Why don't we just ask Hunk to blast the wall down?" Keith asked.

"We might have to, but I only want to use that as a last resort. That could set off alarms we don't want set off," Shiro replied.

"No offense, but I think we're already at the 'last resort' point," Pidge said, gesturing at the wall.

Shiro sighed. "Let's just look a little bit longer, alright? I want to make sure we've fully exhausted our opti--” A giant rumbling coming from inside the base and under their feet cut him off. Out of nowhere, a door appeared and began to raise to the left of them.

"Well that’s not totally creepy and suspicious," Pidge deadpanned, carefully drawing their bayard. Shiro had to agree, but...

"What's done is done," he said. "Let's just take our opening and go." Keith and Pidge both turned to stare at him.

“You… sure?” Keith asked, raising an eyebrow, and drawing his bayard as well. He really wasn’t, but he wasn’t going to let the other two know that.

“I don’t exactly have a better idea. The best plan at this point is getting in and out as fast as possible.” The other two shrugged, and they all went to hurry inside, but Shiro paused at the threshold. Pidge and Keith were already halfway down the hallway before they realized their leader was still just standing there.

"Shiro, come on! This was your idea!" Pidge yelled. He stayed where he was. Faintly, faintly, but very insistently, there was some kind of beeping sound. It was starting to get louder and more frequent, almost imperceptibly.

"Do you two hear that?" he asked cautiously, hoping his paranoia wasn't getting the better of him. Pidge looked confused, but Keith immediately understood and started listening. After a few seconds, he gave him a sharp nod. Shiro swallowed. There was definitely something not right about this. They should have found another way.

"We need to get out of here, away from that beeping, now." Keith nodded again and grabbed a protesting Pidge by the arm and dragged them right back out to where they were. Together, they all ran down the side of the rock face just in time. Seconds later, there was an explosion at the entrance to the base. The force of the blast knocked them off their balance a bit, but they were otherwise unharmed. Shiro almost slipped, but he recovered himself quickly.

"You guys okay?" Lance's voice came over the comms on their helmets.

"Yeah, fine," Shiro panted.

"You might not be for long," Hunk cut in. "Some kind of ship is approaching from straight ahead. Three guesses as to who it is, first two don't count." Fuck.

"It's a trap," Shiro muttered. Fuck. He'd been right. He'd been right and second-guessing himself had almost cost him and Keith and Pidge their lives. The ominous appearing door hadn’t exactly been subtle, after all. "Go, go, come on, get to your lions!" he said louder.

The three paladins all scrambled inside. Black roared to life as soon as he was in the seat. His scanners also seemed to be up and running all of a sudden, although the radio back to the castle was still jammed. His fingers flew across the controls and oh, this was bad, this was very bad. There wasn't just one Galra ship coming for them. There were several fleets.

"Incoming!" Lance shouted. Shiro jerked his steering controls to the right, narrowly dodging a missile aimed straight for him. He quickly changed his course, flying upwards, hoping to camouflage himself with the cloud cover. Unfortunately, the fog worked just as well for the quickly approaching enemy as it did him. He rounded off a few shots blindly, and he was pretty sure at least a couple landed, but this position was essentially useless. They’d be forced to defend from the ground. He flew back and Hunk was blasting and blasting the lead ship that was now very much in range from their positions. It was doing some damage, but not quick enough. Two, three, four other ships were now in shooting range. Keith was engaging them and holding his own pretty well, but it wouldn't be long until they were all overwhelmed.

"Stand down and regroup! We need to form Voltron!" Shiro commanded.

At least, this time everyone listened to him without any problem. The adrenaline was probably helping, but it was quite easy to reach and connect with everyone’s minds and quintessence and sync them to form Voltron. Shiro let out a shaky sigh of relief. Things were at least patched up enough that they could do this, be a team again. In a snap second, he reached out with Voltron’s left arm and blasted that lead ship out of the sky. It felt familiar, and it almost felt good to be taking down Galra forces again.

That was until he noticed the whole right side of the robot seemed to be… lagging a bit. There was just a few seconds delay between Shiro’s commands and Keith and Lance’s respective agreements, and the actual carrying out of his orders. The right arm sliced down a ship just as the right leg backed off to avoid a missile headed their way. The entire robot was thrown off balance, Hunk and Pidge doing their best to accommodate, but they still started to careen wildly. This gave three ships the opening to start swarming, their fire focused on the already off right side. Shit. The Galra had already spotted their weakness, like wolves to wounded prey. They needed to get on the same page, now.

Shiro reached out and touched Keith and Lance’s minds with his own, and fuck, this was bad. They were just getting more and more distant with every passing moment. He couldn’t see clearly why, since they were both already too far closed off. The bond keeping them fused together as Voltron was unraveling before his mind’s eye. He redoubled his efforts to strengthening it, clamped down on it, refusing to let it unravel further.

“Focus, both of you! Stop separating your minds!” Shiro shouted over the din, interrupting whatever petty squabbling was going on between Lance and Keith.

“I’m trying but, gah--!” Lance got cut off as a Galra blast hit its mark particularly well. “Give the Lone Ranger here the memo that we need to work more on _defense_! We’re not gonna sustain much more of this!”

“We wouldn’t need to if you would just back me up!” Keith screamed.

Lance laughed, a hysterical, hyena-sounding thing. “You say that like I can trust you! Just get your damn shield up, and--” Voltron pivoted as the left side tried to turn so they could get better shots as the Galra fleet, while Keith and Lance remained frozen, too busy bickering. Pidge managed to blast down two of the offending ships targeting the team’s weaker side.

“Guys! Shut up so Shiro and the rest of us can focus!” Pidge yelled, desperately working at their controls like lightning, pulling all the maneuvers they could.

“Or just, stay locked up like that so you can hold our weight, I wanna do a kick!”

“Hunk, I really don’t know if that’s a good idea right now. Listen to them, I don’t think we can count on them to pull their heads out of their asses long enough to do anything. --Shut _up_ , you’re gonna pull us apart!”

Shiro’s head was roaring with a goddamn cacophony. Everybody was screaming, yelling, screaming, pulling apart, all of them. All that noise was over the sounds of lasers and gunfire and roaring ships and his control panel urgently beeping at him. Beep. Beep. Beep. Why was there so much terrible beeping today? He knew Black was trying to tell him something-- in the back of his mind he vaguely registered sustaining a pretty hefty hit a couple minutes ago. It could wait, it had to, he had to focus on keeping Voltron together. He couldn’t even utter a word himself, he was straining so hard. Shut up, shut up, _shut up._

No matter how hard he pulled and held on, the bonds just kept fraying, and fraying, and fraying. He couldn’t do anything; it was too much. He couldn’t stop it. The right side of Voltron might as well be out of commission. His right side wasn’t working, it wasn’t, he. His arm was gone, his right arm was gone, it wasn’t working, the right side wasn’t-- Phantoms pains suddenly shot up through where his right arm should be, where this, this _thing_ , Galra thing was instead, the pain almost crippling him. He wasn’t, he--

And then he was far, far away. Somewhere outside of his head and the battle and Neborion, somewhere in his own personal fog covered planet, everything back behind the pulsing haze. He wasn’t anywhere at all, really. It was just deathly quiet silence and fog.

And then he was being ripped back to reality, except a different one, a worse one. Suddenly, he was thrown back on that Galra operating table, screaming, screaming, everything screaming in pain and on fire.

**********

Everything was in utter chaos. One minute Lance was screaming at Keith, his connection to the other paladins distantly slipping away. The next he and Blue were being flung backwards, spinning and spinning and spinning. 

Judging by the garbled yelling coming over the comms, everyone else was in the same shape. The connection must’ve snapped, fuck. If only Keith would have just _listened_ \-- 

“Screw it. Guys, cover me,” Pidge shouted above the chaos somehow. Anything Lance might’ve said back got cut off by the lasers being shot at him left and right. He bobbed and weaved around a couple close calls (he was actually deserving of the nickname “The Tailor” now, thank you very much). Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Green flying toward the base.

“Pidge, no!” he managed to call, slamming on the thrusters and spraying his machine gun fire wildly. He was in way too tight of a bind right now to be able to aim.

“What the hell, Pidge!?” Keith yelled. “And watch where you’re firing, Lance! You almost hit me!” It took all of Lance’s self-control to bite back the “ _Good,_ ” he wanted to sneer. He was also distracted by trying to blast the Galra ship flanking their left side down, but that was beside the point.

“Somebody’s gotta try and salvage this mission!” Pidge shouted as they landed their lion next to the door of the base. “You two, just have my back. Hunk, don’t let them kill each other!” 

“On it,” he muttered, sounding somewhat disgruntled. With that, they hopped out of Green and charged into the gaping hole blown into the base, bayard drawn. There were a few tense moments where nobody spoke before the Yellow Lion suddenly started rocketing away from the fight.

“I’m sorry, guys, but Pidge is right. We’ve gotta save this mission the best we can, and that means saving those baby Eredos, too.”

“Hunk, get back here! That’s not the mission!” Keith shouted. The larger boy groaned, sounding extremely frustrated.

“I’m not letting those babies die. You wanna tell Allura we failed to save them again, be my guest. You can handle being the backup for once, Keith.”

“What? Hunk, that’s not--please!” There was no answer.

“I can’t believe this. Talk about going AWOL,” Lance grumbled. Speaking of which, Shiro had been awfully quiet. Actually… wait a minute, he hadn’t heard anything from Shiro since before they broke apart. He hammered in the final blast that took that ship down and tried to ignore the sinking feeling in his gut. He quickly looked around and saw Black just kind of… hovering nearby. With slightly shaky fingers, he pulled up his viewport, and the video feed from within the Black Lion.

His heart dropped even further when he saw the shape Shiro was in. His pupils were blown wide and he was completely rigid, clutching his Galra tech arm. Lance thought he could see him shaking slightly, too. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Panic began to spike in Lance. This was bad, this was so incredibly bad, Shiro--

“Shiro! Shiro, buddy, are you there? Shiro!!” he heard himself screaming over the loud lasers. “Shiro, answer me!” The older man faintly mumbled something, but it was too quiet to make out.

“What’s going on?” Keith asked, sounding a little panicked himself. He was currently trying to blitz some of the Galra fighters from above, and was pretty far from everything. At least, he was pretty sure that’s what he was doing. It was hard to make out anything in the fog.

“Shiro, he’s…” _Fuck_. Lance wasn’t even sure what to tell Keith. Shiro liked to downplay his PTSD as much as he could. Knowing how much Keith… cared, he probably wouldn’t even want Lance to say anything to him. It would worry him too much, or something. This was a pretty extreme combat situation though, and shit, he’d been taking too long of a pause. He needed to say something. “...He’s, ya know. Not… doin’ well. Probably out of commission for right now.”

“ _What_?! No, I don’t know, what the fuck? I’m opening a direct line. Shiro? Shiro, what’s going on?”

“Stop it,” he hissed. “Just… take my word for it, alright? We just need to get him out of here. He’s a sitting duck right now.”

“And why the hell should I? How can I trust _you_ , Lance?!” Keith exploded. Okay, that was it. He did not get to throw his words back in his face like that, no matter how much he shouldn’t have said them. The reply he wanted to scream got cut off as a huge explosion went off to his right. Shit, he needed to get Shiro out of there now. If only Keith would just cover him instead of going off and trying to take on all the fighter jets. How could he even see anything up there? Or, you know, actually listen to him at any point during this whole fucking mission. Or ever. Or even acknowledge his presence when he wasn’t forced to, or--they didn’t have time for this. He needed to save Shiro.

“Keith, just can the shit, please. I need you right now.”

“Not the time, Lance. Shiro? Shiro?!” 

Lance was ready to scream. There was no way Keith would ever listen to him, huh? ‘Cause he was just a goddamn clingy cargo pilot. Ugh, if only Keith would just draw the enemy fire better. If he was closer, most of the attacks would be focused on the Red Lion, which was fast enough to avoid any major damage, and he could swoop in and drag Shiro somewhere higher up. Although… fuck, that maneuver would probably leave Green pretty much unguarded. He was gonna kill Pidge and Hunk, seriously. 

“Just get over here, dammit!” he shouted.

“I’m _busy_!” It was at times like these Lance hated Keith as much as he knew Keith hated him.

“Keith, I need you here, now. Shiro’s having a, an episode, alright? You need to distract the fire away from me and Green so I can get him to a safer location. Nobody’s gonna be able to do shit for him if he’s dead, alright?” There was a too long beat of silence as Keith sent another Galra jet spinning down to its demise.

“Fine.” Relief flooded through Lance. The Red Lion abruptly switched tactics and began to nosedive. The Galra jets followed it, and Keith began to pilot complicated maneuvers, leading the bulk of the forces away from Lance and the immediate area surrounding the entrance of the base. It was… kind of breathtaking, honestly. It reminded him how fucked he was.

“If you’re going, go, idiot.” Right. He was definitely not blushing as he zoomed up to where Shiro was. Wait. How the hell was he supposed to carry the Black Lion, again? He really didn’t think this through.

Suddenly, Black’s eyes lit up, glowing purple. He noticed… he thought Blue’s eyes were maybe glowing too, in response. Was that how the Lions themselves communicated? Hell if he knew.

“Shiro?” he asked tentatively. There was still nothing more than a muffled, unintelligible response. Yeah, it had to be the Lions. He felt Blue gently nudging at his mind with her quintessence, and he let her in. The image of the Black Lion trailing after them popped into his head. Black could do that much on autopilot? Or maybe Shiro was recovered enough that he could at least steer her.

“Alright, here we go.” He shifted everything to overdrive and then began rocketing upwards. He pulled up his viewport and saw Black was keeping pace with them, thankfully. They needed to get out of this fog, out of this whole damn planet’s atmosphere. His heart was pounding in his ears, half expecting a Galra ship or Zarkon himself to come flying out of nowhere and attack them. But everything was silent, the sounds of lasers and gunfire growing fainter and fainter every second as they gained altitude. He couldn’t believe it. Their plan was actually working.

Once they made it past the atmosphere, he started fiddling with the comm signal, and, thank god, the line to the castle was open again.

“Allura? Allura, are you there?” He desperately hoped somebody was listening. “Coran? Allura? The mice? Come on, anybody?” He messed with the dials some more and cranked the volume all the way up, but all he was getting was static--

“--ance? Lance, is that you? Come in, please!” Lance had never been so damn relieved to hear the princess’s voice in his entire life.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m reading you loud and clear.”

“Oh, thank goodness! Lance, what the quiznak is going on?!”

“There’s really no time to explain, but basically, it was a trap. Everything went wrong, and Shiro had uh… Shiro’s… incapacitated. He’ll be fine, but, you need to get the castle over here and pick him up, maybe give us aerial support?”

“...Understood. We’re on our way.” Bless every single cosmic power out there at least one person in this galaxy listened to him when they were in a combat situation.

“You’re a doll, Allura, thanks.” He could hear her huff and eyeroll from here, which brought the ghost of a smile to his face. Unfortunately, he couldn’t stick around. He knew Keith probably needed backup like hell down there. He just had to hope no one got to Shiro before Allura did.

Just as he was about to start pulling away, Shiro’s voice, although extremely weak, stopped him. “Lance… defense. Have Keith… offense. ‘Be fine. Go.” Lance swallowed thickly.

“Roger that,” he said, before diving back down to Neborion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warning details: While trying to hold together Voltron, Shiro is triggered and has a flashback and spends the rest of the chapter in a pretty dissociated state. If you need to skip, go from "Shiro's head was roaring" to the perspective switch (*****).
> 
> Thank you again to everyone who commented, and this fic is now past the 100 kudos milestone! :') We've come so far.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Houston, we have an even bigger problem. (part 2)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Check the tags, there's a definite warning for violence in this one, and a bit of suicidal ideation.

Lance better have been taken down by the Galra with how long he was taking, otherwise Keith was going to murder him himself. Alright, well, that wasn’t fair. He didn’t mean that. Not entirely. He hadn’t meant most of what had come out of his mouth today, honestly. He’d spent so long letting Lance rile him up, and taking his frustrations out on him, that it was hard to stop, as much as he hated himself for it. And you know what, as much overwhelming guilt as he felt for him, Lance could still be goddamn _annoying_. He was being even more stubborn and cagey than usual; how the hell was he supposed to work with that? This was why Shiro was right and he just gave him space most of the time. He only ever ended up getting frustrated and hurting Lance, and, fuck he needed to focus on just getting out of here alive.

He rounded a bend, looping around the several fighter ships trailing him. He was still keeping up fine, but his blasters were getting pretty low on charge. He needed backup, soon, and fast.

Suddenly, one of the ships behind him exploded. He definitely did not do that. He opened his viewport to see Lance mercilessly showering the remaining jets with his blasters. Keith almost grinned in relief.

“So nice of you to finally join us, McClain,” he remarked. He meant it to come out sarcastic, but his voice betrayed him in sounding more worn out than anything.

Lance sighed. “Keith, I’m only gonna do this once. I’m asking you nicely to please, please cut the bullshit. The castle’s on its way to pick up Shiro, and I have orders to handle defense while you take care of offense. So let’s just both shut up and kick some Galra ass, aight?”

Keith couldn’t argue with that. He pushed his bangs back from his face, and a new rush of adrenaline worked a real smile onto his face.

“Let’s go.”

It was as if a switch was flipped. Keith took off once again, shooting and slicing at any Galra ship that dared to cross his path. He was still (somehow?) able to distract the vast majority of their fire while Lance quietly sniped any that came close to doing him or Green damage. Neither of them said a word; they didn’t need to. They were suddenly, somehow, working as a unit. A team. Keith slowly started to lose himself in the heat of the battle, letting himself get more and more reckless to blast down more and more of the seemingly never-ending parade of enemy forces. Weirdly enough, Lance still was silent and just continued sniping. And he knew he didn’t have to restrain himself, because on some deep, subconscious level he realized that Lance was backing him up every step of the way. It was… exhilarating.

Then Pidge’s voice rang out over the comms, breaking the moment, sounding absolutely stressed and exhausted.

“I got it, I, data transfer successful. Fuck. We gotta go _now_.” Keith gritted his teeth as he abruptly nosedived toward the base, giving Lance the opening to pick off the couple ships behind him as they hung back. The next second he saw Pidge busting through the base entrance and practically throwing themself into their Lion, which lighted up immediately. Keith pulled Red out of the nosedive and hovered, ready to fire at the Galra soldiers that were sure to come pouring out of the base, hot on the smallest paladin’s heels.

Except one beat, two beats passed and no one came. The world seemed to freeze, dead silent. Even the gunfire paused. And in slow, slow motion, a gigantic missile fell-- one directly aimed for the Green Lion. Green was already taking off, but she wasn’t fast enough to get totally out of the way. Dimly Keith registered that it wasn’t silent at all, both him and Lance were screaming, screaming for them to _move_ , but--

The missile exploded.

Keith was in close enough proximity that he was thrown back from the blast several meters. A wall of sound erupted, whining crunching metal and falling debris and the gunfire back louder than ever. Red was roaring in his mind, filling him with absolute _rage_ , tearing his throat raw as he screamed _Pidge_ over and over.

“Those fucking monsters,” Lance muttered, so low and quiet but somehow still heard perfectly, how the fuck did he do that? “They were waiting. They were goddamn _waiting_ to attack Green until Pidge was inside. There’s no way they weren’t, they--those _monsters_ , I’m gonna--” Keith was going to be sick. He was shaking, he was ready to puke, he. He was going to fucking rip Zarkon’s throat out with his teeth.

“Guys? Guys?! What’s going on? My comm signal’s been jammed and I just got through and--” Hunk’s voice floated in, faint but blatantly panicked.

“I’m going down there.” Lance’s voice was pure anguish. “There might be a chance, I, I gotta.” He immediately flew down to the crater where the base was and whatever was left of Green likely was, too. Keith’s fingers moved on their own to the controls of his blasters, covering him in return.

“Guys? Hello? Can you hear me?”

Keith somehow found his voice. “Pidge is d--” he choked on the word. “Down. They’re down. Get,” his voice cracked. “Get the fuck over here. Forget the babies.”

“Oh my god. Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god. I screwed up. I screwed up, I, oh my god, I’m so sorry, sorry, oh my--”

“Hunk,” Lance said, blunt. Defeated. “Breathe, Hunk. You gotta breathe and get over here, man.” Hunk started laughing wildly.

“Here’s the thing. I’d love to, but I can’t. As in, I literally can’t. The Galra have me surrounded. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I screwed up--” Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, _fuck_. Another ship was blasted out of the sky. And another. And another, and another, and another, and all Keith could see was red. 

“Keith.” Because they were all going to fucking die on this miserable rock, weren’t they? And fuck, he was not going to go down without taking as many of these pieces of shit with him as he could. “Keith.” He would tear them apart and tear them apart and fuck, he knew he was going to die trying, and it was probably a little concerning how little that thought was fazing him. “ _Keith_.”

“ _What?_ ” he yelled as he rammed a ship into the rocks. His blasters were down and he was out of ammo.

“They’re alive,” Lance choked out, before starting to cry in relief. “Pidge is-- they’re okay. They’re _okay_. Green, on the other hand, is a different story, but they’re okay.” Keith sat back in his seat, feeling completely hollowed out. They were okay? He couldn’t believe… a faint, faint light at the end of the tunnel opened up. There was a possibility they could all get out okay. If Pidge had survived an almost direct hit by that missile, then maybe--

That thought was cut off as a Galra ship slammed into him right back. He fell, yanking on his thrusters just in time to avoid being dashed onto the rocks. Probably the closest call he had today, in all honesty. He really wasn’t going to last much longer.

“Keith!” Lance yelled, sounding far more concerned than he deserved.

“Don’t worry about me. Just. Just get Pidge out of here. I’ll get Hunk.”

“Keith, goddammit, _wait_. The castle should be here any second now; we need to wait for the reinforcements.”

“And wait for the Galra to get even more reinforcements in the meantime? I don’t think so.” He started flying as fast as he could toward Hunk’s last uploaded coordinates.

“Get back here! Dude, you’re out of ammo, this is fucking suicide!” He kept flying.

“Wait, Keith, if you’re out of ammo, just leave me. It’s not worth it. Red will just be captured, too,” Hunk said.

“You idiot, why can’t you just _listen to me_?!” He kept flying. He could barely see a thing, but he kept flying. Lance let out a scream of frustration. “Fine! _Fine_! Then I’ll just make you listen!”

“Lance, no. Whatever you’re doing, stop,” Hunk warned. Keith checked his scanner and saw the Blue Lion’s position hurtling towards his own.

“Just hold on tight, buddy. I’ll get you out of there,” Lance said, blatantly ignoring him. Keith gritted his teeth. Blue was rapidly gaining on him; Red just didn’t have the fuel to go any faster.

“You’re just leaving Pidge unguarded out there, you know,” he spit.

“You can shut the fuck up, you know,” Lance snapped back. “If anyone’s gonna go all cowboy and go on this fucking suicide mission, it’s gonna be me. I have a better chance of succeeding than you, alright?” He had almost reached the coordinates his scanner was showing Hunk at. He saw almost nothing but a mass of purple through the fog out there. Hunk really wasn’t kidding about being surrounded, huh. Blue was at his right flank now.

“Lance, Keith, I’m begging you guys, _please_ \--” 

“Both of you better halt and fall back immediately, or so help me.” Allura’s voice rang out cold and crystal clear over the comms. Hunk made noises of obvious relief.

“Thank _god_ , you guys made it. You… fuck. You made it.” Lance would probably sound relieved if he didn’t sound so drained. Keith was frozen in his seat, his knuckles white from how hard he was gripping his controls. Allura… was here. Ordering him to stand down. He… he didn’t have to do this? Slowly, slowly he turned Red around and started piloting her back toward the base. His hands started to shake. Had he really almost done that? Fuck.

“Don’t worry paladins, cavalry’s here! Our deepest apologies for taking so long,” Coran chimed in.

“You’re here now, and that’s what matters,” Lance replied.

“Lance, you’re still well enough equipped, yes?” Allura asked.

“Yeah, I still got some juice.”

“Then I suppose we have no other choice at this point. You retrieve Hunk. Keith, retrieve Pidge and the Green Lion. We’ll try to cover you both from the air the best we can.” They both agreed.

Keith flew down to the crater that was the base and the wreckage that was the Green Lion. The sick feeling in the pit of his stomach returned as he flew closer. Green was pretty badly mangled, although her eyes were still lit up, meaning her quintessence was fine at the very least. He could definitely feel how upset Red was about it, though. She kept accelerating toward Green without any prompting from Keith.

When he landed, he saw Pidge trying to extract themself from their Lion and having little success, much to their exasperation. They definitely looked less than “fine”-- they were all bruised and banged up, and their arm was worryingly trapped under some sheets of metal, but considering what could’ve been… Keith supposed that they all should be grateful. He quickly jumped out of his own Lion and threw on his helmet, rushing to help them out.

“‘M fine,” they growled once he was an arm’s length away from them. The look of pure determination, almost ferocity, on their face made Keith stop short. They gave another desperate, frustrated tug on their arm, and another, and another, and Keith took another step forward until they fixed him with a glare.

“I can… I can do this, okay? ‘Don’t need your help. I can do this.” Pidge sounded more like they were pleading with him than trying to convince him they could do anything right now. He… he didn’t know what to do; he at least got where Pidge was coming from. He would probably be at least as stubborn about saving himself in their situation. But at the same time, he had to do something. They were just going to tear their arm out of their socket at this rate.

He moved closer, slowly and gently as he knew how, and Pidge let him. He unsheathed his bayard and wedged his sword between the metal and the rest of the ship, lifting it up just enough so they could quickly pull their arm out. It was still bent at a terrible, unnatural angle, and there came the nausea rushing back again. Pidge had to double over, clutching at their arm the best they could. They were silent, but their teeth were gritted and Keith thought he could see a couple tears leaking out of their squeezed-shut eyes.

“Come on,” he whispered, and hesitantly put a hand on their back and ushered them forward and helped them into Red the best he could.

*********

Keith and Pidge were the first to make it back to the castle, and honestly, it was way more agonizing than he realized waiting for Hunk and Lance to make it back. Pidge was in a healing pod, and Shiro was apparently resting in bed somewhere. He wanted to go to him more than anything, but when he tried, Allura stopped him.

“I can’t have you going off on your own right now, Keith. In case you do something you’ll regret.” In any other situation, Keith would’ve just found that patronizing, but Allura just sounded tired, and, well, genuinely worried. He found himself sitting right back down and shutting up.

Now, Allura and Coran were busy keeping up the castle’s defenses and holding off the last remains of the Galra fleets. Keith was probably supposed to be scanning and analyzing the data Pidge got, but he couldn’t focus on much of anything right now. The idea of Lance and Hunk being in, well, mortal peril while he had to essentially just sit there and _wait_ … It was slowly driving him insane.

Finally, finally, Hunk’s voice crackled through over the comms. “Prepare us for docking. We made it.”

“And prepare some extra room, too, ‘cuz we got a baby on board,” Lance added, somehow sounding elated through his exhaustion.

Allura and Coran were both staring at one another. “No… it couldn’t be… they couldn’t have possibly…” Allura murmured at the same time a shaky grin was starting to split Coran’s face.

“You better believe it, princess. Get your asses over here, come on,” Lance said.

“Please,” Hunk hastily tacked on. Both Coran and Allura’s eyes were filled with wonder and not-quite-daring-to-believe-- and then they were all running as fast as they could to the Lion hangars.

Sure enough, when they arrived, there was a baby Eredos sitting in the room that led to all the tunnels where the hangars were. It was huge, almost as high as the ceiling. Hunk and Lance were standing triumphantly next to it, although Lance was almost falling down and leaning on Hunk for support. Coran had his hands in front of his mouth, his eyes shining. Allura was completely still, staring up in shock, tears spilling out of her eyes unbidden as she grabbed onto Coran’s arm. No one said a word for a long moment.

“Where the hell are we going to put it?” Keith blurted out. Lance immediately dissolved into laughter, and definitely would’ve fallen if Hunk wasn’t there. Well, that broke the tension at least.

“I’m so sorry, we could only save the one. I tried so hard, but there was nothing we could do, the Lions could only carry the one between them and we didn’t have time to--”

“Hunk, you absolute fool,” Allura cut him off, openly sobbing now.

“Uh.”

“What the princess means is, is, you have done more for us than you’ll ever know. This… this one Eredos is a miracle, I… we thank you, paladins.” Coran’s mustache was definitely quivering now. It took all of five seconds before one of them pulled the rest into a group hug. They were all crying and laughing at the same time, some beautiful, inexplicable cocktail of all the loss and joy they had experienced that day. It wasn’t something Keith really understood, but he could appreciate the poignancy of the moment, he guessed. Lance was grinning, really grinning. Keith hadn’t seen him smile like that in a really long time, although he had to admit, he hadn’t exactly been looking, either. 

He quickly turned on his heel and left as quietly as he could, before someone could pull him into the group hug, too. It wasn’t his beautiful moment to have.

Plus, somebody should probably go check on Pidge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all as always for your support! Lemme know your thoughts nerds,, I promise things are gonna start lightening up fairly soon,,,


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some important conversations, and a turning point.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello.....it's me...........  
> I'll go into a little more detail in the end notes, but here's a longer chapter to make up for the wait.  
> Chapter warning for just, some really heavy discussions, and violence in the third section.

Lance stood outside Shiro’s door for a long, painful couple minutes. He bit his lip and his hand hovered in front of the metal, trying to will himself to just hurry up and knock already.

A long sigh came from within the room. “You can come in, you know,” Shiro said. Lance jumped and sheepishly tapped his hand on the unlock pad. Shiro had this kinda freaky awareness of other people's presence that never got any less unnerving..

The door whooshed open, and there was Shiro, somewhat propped up in bed. His arms were crossed and he still looked pretty exhausted, but the corner of his mouth was turned faintly upward. Lance still lingered in the doorway for another minute, unsure, before finally darting in and sitting on a chair next to the bed. He sat with his elbows on his knees and stared at his hands. Shiro… he seemed to be okay. Here, at least. He still couldn’t look at him for very long, though.

“Lance.”

“I’m sorry,” he blurted out, fiddling with his fingers a bit. Shiro paused, considering his words for a minute.

“Thank you,” he finally decided on. Another beat of silence occurred, with Lance fidgeting more and more. He knew Shiro was waiting for him to say more, explain himself or something before he started in on the lecture, but he, just. He didn’t want to burden him with anything else right now. He knew he fucked up, okay; he knew he needed to control himself around Keith, but he just _couldn’t_ and--

“Lance.” He continued playing with his hands. Shiro sighed again. “I’m not the only one you need to apologize to.” His head jerked up at that and he finally actually looked at Shiro. His eyes were so, so tired.

“I’ve already apologized to Pidge a billion times, but they keep waving me off and saying it’s fine. So does Hunk, and the one time I tried to apologize to Allura and Coran they looked like they were gonna start crying again. Or deck me. Or both.” Silence. “...Don’t tell me you mean _Keith_.” More silence. “Seriously? Has he even been by to see you?” Shiro’s eyebrows furrowed.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Oh, nothing, only that nobody’s seen him today since, except for Pidge like, once, right when they got out of the healing pod.” Lance leaned back and scoffed. “It’s like he’s become a fucking ghost.”

Shiro’s frown deepened. “I know you’re worried about him, but--”

“And, shit, Shiro, it’s not like he ever sticks around me long enough for me to apologize about a week ago, so why the hell would now be any different! Because we actually worked together for a while?! Please, don’t make me laugh!” Lance had started yelling at some point; he wasn’t sure when, and he didn’t think he could stop, either.

“Wait, what?” Shiro asked.

“Yeah,” Lance spat, unable to keep the bitterness out of his voice. “The whole ‘defense/offense’ thing, it worked. It was working _great_ and then, then Pidge got hit and everything just went to shit, and.” He raked a hand through his hair. “I almost forgot how much he hates me for a minute there. How stupid is that, huh?” A lump settled into his throat. God, what the fuck was wrong with him? He had come here to apologize, not treat Shiro like his emotional trash can once again. He couldn’t seem to keep any of his bullshit to himself anymore, and he needed to get it together.

“Lance.”

“What.” Shiro hesitantly reached over and put his hand on his knee.

“He doesn’t hate you, okay?” Anger welled up in the younger boy once again.

“Yes, he does. Stop fucking patronizing me, okay?! Every time I’ve tried to talk to him, he leaves. He refuses to listen to me, mission or no mission. It’s like, shit, I get that I’ve pushed him away forever. Apologizing isn’t gonna fix a goddamn thing, Shiro!” His hands started shaking and he ran them through his hair in an attempt to hide his panic from Shiro. Not like it would’ve made a difference at this point, but hey.

“No, Lance. _Lance._ Listen to me.” Shiro sat up fully in bed, swinging his legs over the side. He grabbed Lance’s wrist and forced him to look at him. “I promise you, Keith doesn’t hate you. Not anymore, not like he did. He’s just…” He gestured weakly with his other hand. “He’s in a really bad place right now too. I’ll talk to him, alright?” 

Lance looked away, silent. He left the obvious unsaid, that he didn’t exactly have much faith in the older man’s ability to talk to Keith anymore. Shiro sighed again. Did he always use to sigh this much?

“I know. I, I know, and I’m sorry about that, too, Lance. But this is different, and this’ll be the last time. You two…” He laughed bitterly. “I don’t need to remind you why you can’t keep going on like this. So I’ll… I’ll talk to him.” Lance swallowed. There was really nothing else left to say.

“Okay.”

**********

Shiro finally found Keith on one of the upper stargazing decks. He didn’t think either of them had been up here since that one day about a month ago. That was before that first trip to Neborion, though, so it felt more like eons ago.

Keith hadn’t noticed him yet, or he was ignoring him. Those doors were fairly loud, so he was betting on the latter. He paused, just watching him for a moment. Keith’s back was to him, but his head was tilted up, looking at the sky above and leaning on the railing with his elbows. Shiro would have normally labelled the scene ‘peaceful’, except Keith’s entire body was taut, giving him away. He sighed. He was so tired of this, this back and forth, of trying to fix this hopeless situation. He… honestly would rather turn around right now and put off dealing with this however indefinitely. But he knew the universe wouldn’t wait. Besides, he could admit his own fault in creating the situation, and he owed it to Keith and Lance to try and set it right one last time.

Keith still didn’t even twitch as Shiro walked toward him, eventually standing next to him and mirroring his position against the railing. He just kept staring up at the sky, tracing the shapes of the foreign constellations with his eyes over and over again. A somewhat comfortable silence developed between them.

“What do you want?” Keith finally asked, without lowering his gaze. His voice sounded completely hollow. Shiro tried not to let the guilt creep in just yet.

“Who said I wanted anything?” He shrugged. “Maybe I’m just making sure you haven’t dematerialized on us.”

“Yeah, and that’s why you’ve been tearing around the castle looking for me like a man on a mission.” O-kay, so his attempts at tact weren’t appreciated. Keith huffed through his nose, a sound that under different circumstances might have been a snort. “You don’t exactly come see me to make small-talk anymore, Shiro.” That… stung, wow. He quickly looked away, and felt himself scanning the sky for an answer, too.

“Yeah, I deserve that,” he said, running a hand through his hair. “I’m… well, it’s about Lance.”

“When is it not?” And, okay, he deserved that one too.

“Keith…” he trailed off, not really sure where to finish that thought. He still didn’t know how to deal with this. Keith was right, but that didn’t make what he needed to say any easier. Fuck. He didn’t know. “I’ve been a pretty shit friend lately, haven’t I?” It was the only thing he could think of, and also true. It was Keith’s turn to shrug mechanically.

“About as shit as I have, I guess.” Silence descended for a few beats before he began again quietly, “I don’t even know what’s going on with you anymore. I… I had no idea what was happening back there. After we broke apart. And Lance did, at least enough to help, and I… don’t even know if I get to know? Like. I know you can’t talk about that year much, and I get that. I’m just not used to…” He limply gestured between them. Shiro exhaled slowly, trying to work out a response. He dared a glance at the younger boy and saw him shrink into himself, his knuckles white from how hard he was gripping the railing. Turned out “pretty shit friend” was the understatement of the year.

“I’m sorry,” he settled on. “I wanted… I forget sometimes other people worry about me, too. You’re… you’re so young, and you have so much on your plate already. I need to be there for you, not add to it, you know?” Keith inhaled sharply.

“Lance is barely older than me.” Shiro winced at the, just, the pure _bitterness_ of his tone.

“And he found out about my flashbacks pretty much purely on accident, too. He’s a good kid, though. Despite the initial… he does his best to be respectful and accommodating.” Another beat of silence.

“So that’s…? Flashbacks?”

“Yeah,” Shiro coughed into his fist. “Yeah. I can’t… I can’t really go into it, but. Yeah.” There was another shaky pause before Keith abruptly stepped back.

“Well, I’m going to go eat,” he mumbled, turning to go back inside. Shit. Shiro hadn’t even gotten to his point about Lance yet.

“Wait,” he said, grabbing at the other’s wrist. Keith jerked back, as if the older man burned him. Shiro’s eyes widened, he… god, he was so bad at this. He took another long breath before continuing.

“Before you go, just… talk to Lance? Still try to give him space, but not too much? Don’t avoid him. He thinks you still hate him.”

“Are you fucking kidding me, Shiro?” Keith groaned, sounding just so, so, absolutely exhausted and exasperated. Shiro tried to take another step forward and started putting his hand on the younger boy’s shoulder, before thinking better of it at the last second and aborting the gesture. 

“I--” he was abruptly cut off by Keith whipping around to face him for the first time in this conversation. His eyes were narrowed and his fists were clenched by his sides, and shit, he had set him off. They had really been starting to make progress for a minute there, but now that was just spiraling down the drain. Shiro desperately tried to backpedal.

“Look, all I meant was--”

“How the hell do you give someone ‘space, but not too much’? I, fuck, I’ve been staying away from him, from everyone, because it’s what’s best for him. It’s what you _told me_ was best for him!”

“I was wrong, Keith! I’m allowed to do that sometimes!” Shiro really hadn’t meant to start yelling back, but he was just so damn frustrated with this situation. “I didn’t mean for you to start ignoring him, but, shit. This is where we are and I’m just trying to make things right again.” Keith punched at the railing.

“Okay. Okay! Fine. I’ll talk to Lance. Whatever makes you happy.” He turned on his heel to leave again. Shiro pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Keith…” he called after him.

“ _What?_ ”

“Don’t… you don’t actually still hate Lance, right?” Keith halted, his shoulders tensed.

“No.” Shiro hated that that made him breathe a sigh of relief, but it did. He hated that he almost didn’t know Keith well enough to be able to tell anymore.

“Well… do it for him then, alright? Not me.” Keith seemed to deflate at that, then nodded.

“Yeah, okay.” He stood there, frozen in the doorway, as if waiting for Shiro to, what? Give him another lecture? He didn’t know. He didn’t know, he didn’t know.

“...I’m sorry, Keith.” He took a step forward. That was the only thing he really knew. To his surprise, Keith actually turned around to look at him. His expression was still unreadable, though.

“Yeah. Okay.” With that, he turned around and hurried down the hallway without another word. Shiro sank back against the railing and exhaled all the air in his body. The railing creaked in protest and he scrambled to straighten up and take his weight off it. Shit. Well, that went… that conversation sure went. All he could do was hope that this time, things might work out alright. He had done his part as well as he could.

*********

Keith stormed through the halls of the castle, not really paying attention to where his feet were leading him. He hadn’t meant to lie to Shiro. He was going to go eat, eventually, but there was too much of a chance he would run into someone else in the dining hall and he really couldn’t deal with that right now. Right now, he just needed to get rid of all of his pent up frustration. He ended up in front of the training deck, surprise, surprise. He knew Shiro was just trying to make everything right between everyone, but maybe this just wasn’t something that he could fix. 

He gritted his teeth. Here he was again, after all. Back to the training deck. Back to his stupid routine of shutting people out. He slammed his palm onto the unlock pad and unsheathed his bayard in one fluid motion.

“Level 8 gladiator, start!” he called as soon as the door whooshed open and hurried inside.. Except, instead of the room shifting and lighting up like it normally would, it just blanked out white.

“Simulation paused,” the smooth, robotic voice came over the intercoms. “Do you wish to cancel level 5 simulation and proceed to level 8?” In the opposite corner of the room, Lance rose to his feet and lifted his bayard off of his shoulder. The universe just kept giving and giving today, huh?

“No, cancel simulation,” he called, wiping the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. His hair was sticking up worse than usual. He eyed Keith somewhat warily, his expression guarded, then sheathed his bayard. “Thought you’d show up here eventually.” His arms swung loosely at his sides.

Keith swallowed. This was starting to feel a little bit like a trap. “Uh, yeah. I guess. I’ll… I’ll hit somewhere else. I won’t interrupt you.” Maybe he should have just gotten some food after all. He turned to leave, but low, quiet laughter stopped him. He froze, shoulders tensed.

“What’s... so funny?”

“Man, Shiro was so wrong about you,” he taunted, his words suddenly brash. Edged. Like he was looking for a fight that Keith really, really didn’t want to have. He whipped around to find Lance still staring at him from across the room. His arms were crossed and his stance was firmly closed off. He smirked, actually smirked, and Keith felt his eye twitch.

“What are you even talking about?” he sighed, trying to push his irritation down as he sheathed his bayard. He crossed his arms, subconsciously mirroring Lance’s position. He probably should have just left, not risen to his stupid bait, but he told Shiro he’d talk to him, after all. This probably wasn’t what he had in mind, but when weren’t they in each other’s faces, at each other’s throats? Lance took a step forward, lifting his chin.

“Oh, now you actually want to listen to what I have to say? Fascinating.” His frustration was only building with every passing second. It crawled under his skin like an itch he couldn’t scratch, thrummed deep in his guts. Lance just always had to be _like this_. Except when he wasn’t, when he was crying and trembling and looking so small and-- Keith forced that memory out of his head. This, this posturing bullshit, seemed like it was the only way they knew how to communicate. 

“What the hell is your _problem_ , McClain?!” he exploded, storming toward the taller boy. He swung his arms wildly and got right in Lance’s face and, fuck, he hated himself for every step he took. Lance’s eyes flashed and his face morphed into a sneer.

“My problem? _My_ problem?! Pot, meet the goddamn kettle!” he yelled back.

“Can you just answer a simple question instead of, whatever the fuck this is!”

“Not for you, asshole!” Keith felt his eyes rolling into the back of his head.

“You are so immature--”

“Yeah, yeah, that’s right, it’s all on me. As we all know, avoiding someone like the plague is very mature behavior.” Keith flinched.

“Go to hell.” He was such a hypocrite. This was the only way they knew how to communicate? Yeah, right. He was just making excuses for letting himself get sucked down into Lance’s bullshit once again.

“Can’t go somewhere you already are!” Lance sing-songed. Shiro couldn’t fix this, he couldn’t fix this, no one could fix this. The universe was fucked.

“I’m damned if I do, damned if I don’t,” he muttered. He closed his eyes and yanked at his hair, trying not to scream.

“Now what are _you_ talking about?” Keith straightened and glared at the other boy. At least he wasn’t the only hypocrite, he guessed.

“I’m talking about the fact that if I leave you alone, I’m ignoring you, and if I try to talk to you, I’m the world’s biggest asshole! Everything I do just makes it worse!” Lance was stunned into silence, and frankly, Keith was pretty shocked too at his own candor. The truth had finally slipped out and was now echoing in the too-quiet training room. Keith took a step back, and then another, then another. Fuck. Why didn’t he just go to the dining hall?.

“Did Shiro put you up to this? Trying to talk to me and ‘fix this’, or whatever?” Lance asked quietly, sad, almost, while staring at the ground. Fuck it. Keith was too tired of this shit to be anything but blunt about it.

“Yeah. He also put me up to ‘giving you space’ this past week, though, so who’s counting?” Lance’s head jerked up and his eyes widened.

“Are… are you kidding me?!” Keith felt the bitter ghost of a smirk at his own lips.

“I wish.” Lance broke eye contact, turning away and clasping his hands behind his head. He started laughing, still way too quiet for, well, Lance.

“I’m gonna kill him, I swear,” he whispered.

Silence grew between them, thick and awkward. Keith started to shift in place a bit anxiously. He could just walk out now. Every cell in his body was telling him to, and it was the perfect opening. It was what Lance would expect him to do, honestly, and maybe that’s what kept his feet rooted to the floor anyway. He knew this was probably still unfixable. But if he was really being honest with himself for once, he didn’t need Shiro to tell him that he needed to try and fix it anyway. One look at Hunk, or Pidge, or Allura, or even Coran’s face after that mission told him volumes. He had been failing everyone for too long.

“You want to spar?” he asked. He still didn’t know how to apologize, or if Lance would accept one, or if he would even deserve it if he did. And if they only ever were on the same wavelength while fighting, then, well.

Lance looked completely taken aback. “What?”

“Come on,” he said. “You heard me.” Still looking bewildered, the other slowly drew his bayard. Keith immediately drew his. It was like a switch being flipped once again. Lance smirked and dropped his hips, cocking his weapon.

“You are so on, pretty boy.”

And then everything narrowed down to his blade crashing against the barrel of Lance’s gun. One, two, three times; strike, strike, block, parry, strike. He just needed to keep up the pressure on his end and not give Lance space to breathe and fire off a round. It felt almost a little too easy. He could almost hear Shiro’s voice in the back of his head telling him to lighten up and cut the other boy some slack. Keith bit his lip. It… probably wasn’t good form to eviscerate the guy you were pretty responsible for causing the emotional breakdown of into the dirt, right? 

He abruptly took five steps back and held his sword up, giving Lance the opening he needed. Lance blinked confused, and hoisted his bayard to his shoulder and fired a few shots. Keith dodged them, but didn’t move far from his position, not trying to regain the upper hand. Lance started to frown, not taking the delight he should have been from winning. This went on a couple more times before Lance stomped over to Keith and slammed the barrel of his blaster against his sword. It was more forceful than he was expecting, and Keith let it knock his bayard out of his hands. It clattered loud against the floor. Lance stared at it, then looked back at Keith, looking almost murderous for some reason.

“What. The hell. Was that?” he ground out. Keith slowly raised his hands up in defense.

“Uh. Me losing the match?” Lance snarled and jabbed him in the chest with his bayard.

“That was you--that was you not even trying. What, just, what the fuck?!” Keith felt caught as Lance stared him down, his words dying in his throat. He didn’t even know why, though, he felt ashamed. He didn’t get it. Lance wanted him to actually try to kill him?

“I thought… you wanted to win? Isn’t that your whole… thing, wanting to beat me?” That was apparently the completely wrong thing to say because Lance dropped his weapon in favor of punching him in the mouth.

“You ass,” Lance whispered. Keith slowly turned his head back to look at the other boy, feeling at his jaw tenderly. His fists were clenched and he was shaking. To Keith’s horror, tears, angry tears were starting to well up once again in his eyes. “I want to win in a real fight, you fucking asshole. I don’t need your _pity_. I want...”

“Yeah, well, I don’t think I can give you what you really want, Lance.” The bile was out before he could stop it. Lance jerked back like he had been slapped. It was… it was the truth, though. He knew he was probably way too blunt about it, but… it needed to be said.

“I guess not,” Lance mumbled. He grabbed his bayard off the floor and turned to leave. Keith felt a spike of panic slam into his chest. He couldn’t let Lance leave like that, all small and broken. Not again. Forget the rest of the team, he owed it to the boy in front of him to fix this.

“It’s not your fault, Lance.” He froze, a couple meters from the exit.

“It’s not your fault that I can’t. It’s just, the way things are, alright? And I’m sorry. You don’t deserve this…” he gestured weakly, “Shit. So don’t. Don’t blame yourself.” Silence. Lance didn’t move an inch. Keith fidgeted nervously. That still didn’t come out quite right, but, it was the best he could do. He had still fucked up, though, hadn’t he? Lance still wasn’t saying a goddamn thing and it was killing him--

“Thanks,” Lance said, so quietly that if every part of Keith wasn’t tuned and listening for a response he might not have heard it. He still didn’t move. Keith was relieved, but he still felt incredibly restless. It didn’t really feel like anything had been settled. He looked down and saw his bayard kicked to the side. He went over and picked it up gingerly.

“I can still give you that fair fight, though. If you want it.” Slowly, slowly Lance turned around. His expression was unreadable as he looked Keith up and down. The red paladin held his breath. Finally, Lance’s face split into what under different circumstances might have been a smirk. He drew his bayard.

“Go on then. Hit me with your best shot.”

That was all the encouragement he needed before he was attacking. He began jabbing, striking, moving in a flurry right in Lance’s personal space. Still, the other boy was able to keep up with him pretty well. Their weapons clanged together and Keith pushed up with all his might. He grit his teeth and pushed harder and harder against Lance, who was matching his strength bit for bit. Damn. When had that gangly kid gotten all this upper body strength?

Suddenly, the resistance he was pushing against was gone and there was a sharp knee in his ribs as he fell forward, then a backhand to the jaw. In the same spot Lance had already hit him, no less. He stumbled back slightly, winded. Lance took the opportunity to jump back a couple paces and get his bayard into position. He fired off two quick shots which Keith dodged with less ease than he would have liked.

“You fight dirty,” he muttered as he rubbed at what was probably a particularly nasty bruise blooming on his face. It hurt to move his jaw, fuck. He lowered his stance further, getting ready to jump out of the way of the next blast.

Lance just gave him an extra-toothy grin. “All’s fair,” he crooned. Keith rolled out of the way of his next shot, and the next, and the next. He noticed he kept getting pushed back closer and closer to the far wall, however, which was the worst place he could be. He needed to get back in close, and fast.

“What’s the matter, hotshot, starting to feel the heat?” Lance taunted him. Keith rolled his eyes. Fine, you know what? He’d been playing this match too safe. He would just have to do the one thing Lance wouldn’t expect.

With a savage yell, he tossed his sword and charged. Lance’s eyes widened and in the next second he was being knocked to the ground as Keith barreled into him. Keith landed on top, and he scrambled for his fallen weapon. Lance wasted no time in kicking him off of him. Keith went flying, but still landed relatively gracefully, without a clunk. Lance had actually kicked him in the direction of his bayard, fortunately enough. He grinned, despite his jaw’s complaints, ow, ow, fuck, and dived for his weapon. Just as he was about to grasp it, however, a hand fisted in the collar of his jacket and yanked him up and away.

And then Lance was slamming him against the wall, his forearm against his throat and his blaster nestled against his ribs. He was pinned. Both boys were panting. Their eyes met, Lance's pupils blown wide. Keith's already labored breathing caught in his throat, the adrenaline of the fight still coursing through him. He couldn't look away. They both stared at one another a second too long, and in that second Keith could've sworn Lance was about to kiss him.

And then the moment passed, and Lance was pulling away. He stepped back and cockily rested his blaster on his shoulder with his signature smirk. Keith coughed and slid downward against the wall slightly, taking a moment now that his airway was no longer blocked. Underneath the relief was a tiny pang of disappointment, and he couldn't figure out why.

"See, that's the kind of effort I expect from my rival," Lance smirked, pushing his bangs back from his face. Just like that, the tension was broken.

"Why are you always so annoying," Keith huffed. The disappointment was just some kind of heat of the moment thing, clearly. And, ow, fuck, his jaw. He should just never speak again, _ow_.

"Just part of my charm, babe," Lance said, shooting him a finger gun with his free hand and winking, god. He paused when he saw how Keith was still clutching at his face. “Shit, are you okay?”

Keith waved him off. “I’m fine, I’m fine.” He was not, in fact, fine. 

"Come on, let’s get you to a pod. We’ve got damaged goods here!"

"I don't know why I ever felt sorry for you," Keith spluttered, lightly punching the other boy in the shoulder.

He followed him to the healing pods, both of them throwing insults and jokes and bickering. It was all good-natured. In fact, it almost felt like old times, like the path they were heading down before they got mixed up in this love triangle bullshit and that exploded in their faces. It was... fun. Keith found himself smiling genuinely at moments (where the pain wasn’t too much to bear), and he could tell Lance was, too.

His last thought as he went into the pod was that he really, really missed this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I have been just incredibly busy with school and the previous chapter was the end of my backlog, and my beta has to find time in her schedule to look things over. So... updates are going to be spotty from now on. This thing is going to be completed (eventually) but... real life is a bitch, folks.
> 
> Thank you for reading, and please don't forget to leave a comment!

**Author's Note:**

> Follow us on Tumblr to talk headcanons or anything Voltron-related, really.  
> [Rowena](im-just-too-cynical.tumblr.com) (me) and [Diane](dianeofarc.tumblr.com).  
> Thank you for reading!


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